BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has got support from writers and Congress leaders on the Arkavathy Layout denotification issue.
Kannada Writer Ko Chennabasappa said the first notification issued 10 years ago was done mechanically and without proper thinking. “When farmers objected and went to the High Court, the court also pointed out that the land notified for acquisition was on city outskirts, where BDA has no hold. After this judgement, it went to various benches. Now the Supreme Court has told the state government to rework the Arkavathy layout plan,” he said.
“BJP members went to the Governor complaining about the issue but it is too early for the BJP to take up the issue. The state government has not started any review and it looks like BJP members only want to halt the work related to notification completely,” he said. Former speaker of the Assembly and MLA K R Ramesh Kumar said, “The Arkavathy notification issue is an 11-year-old one while Siddaramaiah’s government is two years old. Over these years, the case was pending before courts,” he said.
He said the SC judgement came soon after Siddaramaiah became the CM and just a few days after the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls. “Many vested interests started spreading rumours that Siddaramaiah did this to get money for elections,” he said.
Ramesh challenged political leaders from other parties to compare the properties of their family members with that of Siddaramaiah and his family members. “If his property has increased drastically, I will myself tell the chief minister to resign,” he said. “There is no need for Siddaramaiah to get bail, but those complaining against him might need to do so,” he taunted.
Former minister B K Chandrashekar said when BJP was in power, Congress used the Arkavathy denotification issue against BJP. “It looks like BJP wants to use the same card, but they will not succeed. As per the court order in 2010, the then BJP government appointed four land acquisition officers who conducted a survey. But there is an allegation that these officers did not visit the layout.”
“When Shettar was the CM, he did not sign the file as the election’s model code of conduct was in force. Meanwhile, there were four contempt cases and when Siddaramaiah became the CM, the fifth contempt case was registered. Siddaramaiah did not have any other option other than signing the file,” he said.