Kalaburagi/Shivamogga: Sticking to his claim that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had paid Rs 1,000 crore to the Congress high command to save his position, BJP state president, B. S. Yeddyurappa told reporters here on Wednesday that his party MPs would write to the CBI director to investigate the matter.
Challenging the Chief Minister to deny the entries made in the diary of Congress MLC, K. Govindraju were about the payment made, he said the Enforcement Directorate was already looking into the matter.
“I have nothing to say against Mr Govindraju, who is merely the carrier. The Congress is holding a Satyameva Jayate rally in Bengaluru tomorrow. Before it begins let the Chief Minister reveal the truth about the payments made to the high command. If I’m proved wrong and there are no entries of payments made to the Congress high command in the diary, I will retire from politics. The people have not forgotten the Rs 85 lakh watch received by Siddaramaiah. They also know that the Chief Minister has played a key role in the Arakavathy denotification issue. Yeddyurappa will not let you go scot free,” the BJP leader warned the Chief Minister.
As if to show he meant business, he went on to release a letter addressed to the SP, CBI (Anti Corruption Branch), by a resident of Peenya Stage II, S Thripuranthaka Murthy alias Renukappa, seeking a CBI inquiry into alleged “large scale money laundering” by Mr Govindraju and payments made by him to various leaders in Delhi and other places. The letter refers to raids by the I-T department on March 15 and 16, 2016 on the MLC’s home and the recovering of a diary with details of alleged bribes paid.
When the BJP chief’s attention was drawn to Mr Siddaramaiah’s threat to expose the misdeeds of the Opposition leaders, he shot back, “He is the Chief Minister and has the authority to do this. I welcome it.”
As for KPCC working president, Dinesh Gundurao’s comment that he had lost his mental balance, Mr Yeddyurappa retorted, “I don’t like to make personal attacks. But Mr Dinesh should know that a big scam has taken place in BBBMP right under his nose. Around Rs 3,500 crore of the taxpayers money has been embezzled. I will release the documents in Bengaluru tomorrow.”
Asked about the possibility of him changing his constituency in the coming Assembly election to Malleswaram in the city, he merely responded, “I will consult you (media) on the constituency and make the announcement when the time comes.”
Sue BSY or apologise to him: Ayanur Manjunath
Former Rajya Sabha MP, Ayanur Manjunath on Wednesday challenged Congress working president, Dinesh Gundu Rao to file a defamation case against state BJP president and Shivamogga MP, B. S. Yeddyurappa if he had the guts or else apologise to him for his comments against him. Mr Manjunath claimed the BJP chief had made his charges against some ministers and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as he had enough evidence about their ‘misdeeds.’ “Let the Congress party conduct an inquiry into these charges or else if Congressmen feel Mr.Yeddyurappa’s allegations are false, let them file a defamation case against him,” he said. Objecting strongly to Mr.Rao calling Mr. Yeddyurappa “mentally unfit,” he wondered what he would call senior Congress leaders like Janardhan Poojary, Jaffer Sherief and H.Vishwanath who were constantly critical of Mr. Siddaramaiah’s style of functioning.
“The Congress is itself an epicentre of corruption. As its popularity is dipping in the state, its leaders are making statements according to their whims and fancies,” he maintained, also accusing the Congress government in the state of making the Lokayukta almost defunct and hurriedly setting up the Anti-Corruption Bureau only to clear some of its ministers of corruption charges.
