JOIN USCong wants to know if BSY has joined I-T dept
“Has Yeddyurappa (BJP state president) joined Income Tax department?” This is the question Congress leaders raised on Monday, a day after the BJP leader made the Rs 150-crore kickback charges against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for sanctioning the controversial steel flyover project in Bengaluru.
Five ministers and two Congress MLCs, who held a joint press conference at Vidhana Soudha, argued that Yeddyurappa was claiming that details of the kickback were available in a diary maintained by Congress MLC K Govindaraj, whose residence was raided by the I-T department a few months ago.
But as per Section 138 of I-T Act, details of any I-T raid cannot be disclosed to anybody. Information cannot be given even under the Right to Information Act, Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy said.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Ramesh Kumar sought to know whether Yeddyurappa had joined I-T department.
“Was he (Yeddyurappa) part of the I-T department team that raided Govindaraj’s residence? Or, is I-T department part of BJP?... Nobody knows whether there is a diary at all. Even if there is one, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot access it,” he said, adding that it shows that the kickback charges are baseless, misleading and politically motivated.
He said Siddaramaiah will never do anything illegal and that he will not be allowed to continue in his post if he indulges in such illegality, he added.
“The steel flyover project was first approved by the then BJP government in 2010.
It is unbecoming of a former chief minister (Yeddyurappa) to make baseless charges. It was during the BJP rule in the past that a number of cases of irregularities and corruption were reported. It was Yeddyurappa who went to jail. He does not have moral right to talk about corruption,” Rayareddy said.