Karnataka govt 'ready' to probe Yatnal's claim of 'Vijayendra forged Yediyurappa's sign'

'A senior BJP lawmaker is accusing his party's president of duplicating a chief minister's signature. This is a serious allegation. I'm shocked at the nature of the allegation, Priyank Kharge said, adding that it amounted to corruption, forgery, money laundering and extortion.

Bengaluru/Hubballi: The Congress government said on Monday that it is ready to investigate BJP lawmaker Basanagouda Patil Yatnal’s sensational claim that former chief minister B S Yediyurappa’s signature was forged by his own son B Y Vijayendra, when the former was in power.

Yatnal has claimed that Vijayendra, the BJP state president, was responsible for Yediyurappa landing up in prison. Reacting to this, IT/BT and Rural Development & Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister and government spokesperson Priyank Kharge said the matter will be probed if Yatnal lodged a complaint.

“This is no longer the BJP’s infighting. The allegations are criminal in nature. A senior BJP lawmaker is accusing his party's president of duplicating a chief minister's signature. This is a serious allegation. I'm shocked at the nature of the allegation,” Priyank said, adding that it amounted to corruption, forgery, money laundering and extortion. “If Yatnal files a complaint, we'll get it investigated,” he said.

“He (Vijayendra) duplicated his father’s signature. If Congress, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar have the guts, an investigation should be done on all signatures Yediyurappa made when he was in office. Send them to the forensic lab,” Yatnal said in Hubballi. He made this claim on Sunday, too.

Vijayendra declined to comment. "I won't break my head over those targeting me, be it Yatnal or anybody. I'm doing my job as the party president. I won't react to jobless people. God bless them," he said.

After coming to power in 2023, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government ordered a series of investigations into allegations of corruption when the BJP was in power.

This includes irregularities during Covid-19 management, recruitment of police sub-inspectors, the Bitcoin scam, allegations of ‘40 per cent commission’, misappropriation in the state-run Keonics and so on.

Priyank also lashed out at the previous BJP administration for fiscal indiscipline. “The previous BJP government approved works worth Rs 2.09 lakh crore without budgetary allocation,” he said. “In my RDPR department, the outlay was Rs 1,500 crore. But works amounting to Rs 4,000 crore were sanctioned.”

The minister said the Congress government is having to pay interest on loans raised by the BJP.