Get 982 cr from Eagleton Resort: BJP to Cong

The BJP on Saturday took potshots at the Congress for shifting its legislators to the Eagleton Resort in Bidadi near Bengaluru, which owes the government Rs 982 crore for allegedly encroaching upon government land.

“Now that Congress party will spend time in the resort, we request ‘Maryada Purushothama’ Sri Siddaramaiah, D K Shivakumar & Dinesh Gundu Rao to collect this money while you return. You can use it farmer loan waiver,” the BJP tweeted.

In 2017, a Cabinet sub-committee fixed Rs 982 crore as the amount that the resort will have to pay for encroaching upon 77 acres of government land. The issue came up during the recent winter session of the legislature in Belagavi, where Revenue Minister R V Deshpande told the Assembly that the government would take all measures to collect the fine.

Replying to a question by A T Ramaswamy of the JD(S), Deshpande said the Supreme Court had directed the resort to either pay the government the guidance value of the encroached land or surrender the same. However, the resort questioned the manner in which the Cabinet sub-committee had arrived at the Rs 982 crore figure in the High Court of Karnataka.

Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar said that the government had every intention of recovering the penalty money. He said that during the previous Congress regime, he as Ramanagara district in-charge minister, had taken the decision to initiate legal proceedings against the resort. “There is a legal process...we will recover the amount,” he said. Shivakumar maintained that the MLAs were not staying on the encroached part of the resort.

BJP former minister Suresh Kumar and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao locked horns on Twitter on the issue. “Whole Karnataka knows about Eagleton resort & how much they are due to govt (sic),” Kumar tweeted.

In response, Rao said: “The whole state should also know that in 2012, the BJP government decided to handover 77 acres of land to Eagleton resorts at a throwaway price of Rs 82.69 crore when you were the Law Minister. It was the Congress government that increased the rate to Rs 982 crore in 2017.”