BENGALURU: The Congress on Saturday continued its attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Arkavathy Layout denotification issue.
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who is also in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka, said that the state BJP leaders were hurling baseless charges against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Giving a clean chit to Siddaramaiah, Singh told reporters that BJP should approach the Kempanna Commission (constituted to probe the issue) if they had any grievances.
However, the commission had set January 16 as the last date to receive complaints.
Reiterating the stand taken by Siddaramaiah, Singh said that the land was denotified as per High Court guidelines. “It was done by the Land Acquisition Officers, who were delegated with judicial powers,” he added.
Complimenting Siddaramaiah for ordering a judicial probe to look into the issue, he said, “I would give credit to the chief minister for taking the decision to set up a commission to verify the charges.”
He said anyone could approach the Kempanna Commission with relevant documents to prove their charges.
Stating that the High Court had set six parameters to the Land Acquisition Officers (LAOs) to look into the issue of re-modification of the layout, he said, “The Karnataka government had not given any direction or had intervened in the functioning of the LAOs.”
When brought to his notice that the state government is yet to provide information sought by the Judicial Commission, he said, “If it is true, then it is wrong....It is expected of the government to provide all relevant files....”
Taking a dig at BJP for trying to seek the Governor’s sanction to prosecute Siddaramaiah, Singh said, “Where is the question of giving permission when there is no FIR or any complaint filed against Siddaramaiah.”
Siddu Meets Singh
Earlier in the day, Digvijay Singh met Siddaramaiah and KPCC president G Parameshwara and discussed about the Arkavathy issue.
During the meeting, the duo reportedly provided all information related to the controversy.
The KPCC coordination committee, headed by Digvijay Singh, would meet here on January 30 to take stock of the implementation of programmes promised by the party in its 2013 Assembly election manifesto.