Cong govt sitting on JD(S) plea for land: Gowda

JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda has accused the Congress government of forcing his party out of its 25-year-old headquarters on Race Course Road here without giving it an alternative.

The JD(S) has to vacate the office by December 31 as per an order of the Supreme Court. Gowda suggested that the Congress government was acting with “political motivation” in sitting on the applications the JD(S) had filed before the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahangara Palike (BBMP) to identify a piece of land to house the party’s office.

“Four months ago, we filed an application before the BDA to get a piece of land in Bengaluru to house our party office. Till date there has been no movement. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had assured us that he will personally move the file and provide us the land. We have just four days before the deadline expires but nothing has happened,” Gowda claimed. The JD(S) is ready to operate out of even a shed if it is asked to vacate the Race Course Road office, he added.

The Race Course property has been in dispute for the last few years. The Supreme Court in January dismissed a petition filed by the JD(S) against a Karnataka High Court verdict which had rejected its claim over the property. The High Court had, in October 2013, held that the office belonged to the Congress party. An apex court bench rejected the JD(S) claim over the premises and directed it to vacate it by December 31.

The property was donated to the Bangalore City Congress Committee in 1949 by one Rangaswamy as a gift deed for construction of the Congress Bhavan.

The Congress (O), the Janata Party, the Janata Dal and the JD(S) had successively occupied the property following the divisions in the Indian National Congress between 1969 and 1978, but none of them had acquired the title for the property.

Don’t blame JD(S) for bill on mutts: HDK

H D Kumaraswamy on Saturday denied that the JD(S)-BJP coalition government had introduced a bill on mutts in 2006.

CM Siddaramaiah on Friday said the JD(S)-BJP coalition government had introduced the bill which proposes taking over mutts if they are mismanaged. Kumaraswamy refuted the claim. “I appeal to the CM to stop lying and making false accusations against me and my party,” he said.

The Congress government claims to have based the 2014 bill on the report by the Justice M Rama Jois committee that was formed when Kumaraswamy was the CM. “It’s true the report was submitted when I was chief minister. But we never considered it, let alone implement it,” he said.