BENGALURU: In the wake of the contractors’ association making fresh allegations of a ‘40 per cent commission’ against legislators, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s cabinet ministers have slammed its president Kempanna and demanded that he furnish a list of works he undertook as a contractor.
Ministers Govind Karjol, C C Patil and Murugesh Nirani held press meetings at various places on Friday, alleging that Congress was behind the allegations. Many other ministers and leaders also took Congress to the task.
Speaking to reporters, Water Resources Minister Govind Karjol said in the last year, his department has cleared 25,011 bills of various contractors. “Of these 25,000 bills, contractors did not raise any issue. We want to know about Kempanna’s work, for which he was asked for commission. We want to know which place he had taken up the work and who demanded the commission. Kempanna looks like a sponsored agent of the Congress,” he added.
PWD Minister C C Patil also demanded the work details of Kempanna and wanted to know how many members are there in his contractors’ association. In the last few days, the atmosphere has been in favour of the BJP government. “In order to divert this, Congress is using Kempanna. Kempanna has become the mouthpiece of the Congress,” he said.
BDA chairman S R Vishwanath alleged that it was Congress that was given a commission to Kempanna to make such allegations against the state government.
CONTRACTORS PROTEST, SAY DEPRIVED OF WORK
Karwar: Contractors of Uttara Kannada district on Friday staged a dharna demanding that the government stop giving work contracts to Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited and Nirmithi Kendra, and clear their pending bills. “Eighty per cent of the region is covered with forests. Industries cannot come up here. Thousands of people have taken up contract work.
But now the government is issuing tenders to Nirmithi Kendra, depriving the contractors of their work,” said Madhav Naik, president, Uttara Kannada District Civil Contractors’ Association. He pointed out that this leads to more corruption, and demanded that all tenders awarded to KRIDL and Nirmithi Kendra should be scrapped and should be awarded to local contractors. The protestors raised slogans against the local MLA and the district administration and demanded clearance of pending bills.
BJP MLAs to file defamation case against Kempanna
Kalaburagi: Agriculture Minister B C Patil on Friday said BJP legislators will file a defamation case against Karnataka State Contractors’ Association president Kempanna for making “commission allegations” against them. Patil said the allegations by Kempanna against the legislators are not new. “He has been making these allegations for many months, but he neither goes to court nor provides evidence about his allegations to the authorities concerned or the Chief Minister,” he added.