With Governor’s sanction for prosecution likely, Siddaramaiah slams BJP for using Raj Bhavan to destabilize his regime

With Governor Thawarchand Gehlot seems set to grant sanction for his prosecution in the alleged site allotment scam, chief minister Siddaramaiah on Friday lashed out at the BJP, accusing it of using the Raj Bhavan to destabilize the Congress regime.

The Governor was acting like a puppet in the hands of the BJP-JDS combine, Siddaramaiah told the media at the Mysuru airport.

He called the show-cause notice the Governor issued to him on a letter from activist TJ Abraham seeking permission for his prosecution illegal and unconstitutional.


He said he consciously skipped the council of ministers meeting on Thursday as his own case was being discussed, and he did not wish to set a bad precedent. The council of ministers, after detailed discussions under the chairmanship of Dy CM DK Shivakumar, decided to advise the Governor to reject Abraham’s application and withdraw the show-cause notice.

The CM accused Abraham of indulging in blackmail and said the Raj Bhavan acting on his letter was illegal as he had done this to many people in the past. The Governor hastily issued the notice on July 26, the same day he received the letter, without properly studying the case. The Governor should have studied the aspects of law before deciding to send the notice to the head of an elected government.

There have been such letters pending against the BJP ministers of the previous government, but the Governor’s office sat over them, he said.

The AICC leadership, Siddaramaiah said, was convinced about his case.

BJP-JDS PADAYATRA:
The BJP-JDS will kickstart a weeklong padayatra from Bengaluru to Mysuru

on Saturday to highlight the alleged scam, demanding Siddaramaiah’s resignation on his wife accepting 14 expensive plots in return for the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) taking over 3 acre 16 guntas of her land in a village on the city outskirts.

The Opposition BJP has accused the CM’s family of accepting pricey plots measuring 38,824 sq. ft in Mysuru and sought to know from the CM if it was not an act of corruption.

The CM has maintained that he did not accept the MUDA plots when he was in power. The previous BJP regime formulated the land compensation scheme on a 50:50 ratio basis and allotted the plot in a lawful manner.

The Congress, led by Shivakumar, on Friday launched a 6-day campaign rallies in six towns between Bengaluru and Mysuru to ‘expose’ the BJP regime at the Centre meting out injustice to Karnataka and misusing its authority to destabilize an elected government in the State.