BENGALURU: Former Congress Lok Sabha MP VS Ugrappa on Wednesday urged the BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to respond to a CBI court convicting former minister and Gangavathi MLA Gali Janardhana Reddy, and sentencing him to seven years’ imprisonment in the Obulapuram illegal mining case.
“Reddy and his team had illegally exported 29 lakh tonnes of ore to foreign countries. The judge himself said its value was Rs 884 crore. Now he has been convicted. I demand that BJP leaders who were with them and Modi should reply. In my report, I have said that more than Rs 1 lakh crore of wealth has been looted,” he said, a press conference at the KPCC office.
Ugrappa demanded that the state government should consider Reddy’s illegal mining loot as arrears of land revenue, and confiscate the assets of all those behind it. “Action should be taken against those leading the then state government, and officials who benefited from it,” he said.
“The CBI special court’s 7-year jail sentence to Janardhana Reddy in the illegal mining case sends a clear message to the entire country and the corrupt. It is a fitting example that corrupt politicians are punished one way or another,” he remarked.
“When illegal mining was going on from 2000 to 2006, the coalition government led by HD Kumaraswamy was in power, and then forests minister C Chennigappa had written to the chief minister, stating that illegal mining was going on. Following this, I had demanded a CBI investigation into illegal mining on the floor of the House,” the former MLC claimed.
The then government had appointed a commission of inquiry headed by Justice UL Bhat, which recommended that the CBI should investigate, he said. When we insisted on investigation, it was handed over to the Lokayukta, he added.