BENGALURU: Three days after the Karnataka government formed four separate panels headed by senior IAS officers to probe works and bills from 2019 to 2022, BJP leaders say this was done to harass Opposition leaders.
KR Puram MLA Byrathi Basavaraj, who joined the BJP in 2019 and became a minister, demanded that the government also probe works from 2013 onwards. Jalahalli Venkatesh, a confidant of MLA Muniratha Naidu, said the government’s intention is to settle scores with MLAs who destabilised the JDS-Congress coalition government.
Basaravaj told TNIE, “Our government had released Rs 675 crore to settle part payment of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike contractors. The present government had said it would help the contractors but is now going back on its promises, and has formed a panel to probe works from 2019 to 2022. The intention is to target BJP MLAs. In this process, poor contractors are impacted.”
Agreeing, Jalahalli Venkatesh alleged that the government’s main target were RR Nagar MLA Munirathna Naidu, KR Puram MLA Byrathi Basavaraj and Yeshwanthpur MLA ST Somashekar, who had moved from the Congress to the BJP.
“Earlier, officials from RR Nagar assembly were transferred. Now, most of the works that will be probed are from these assembly segments. DyCM DK Shivakumar and MP DK Suresh also want to weaken BJP leaders in RR Nagar assembly as it will help them in Lok Sabha elections, since the assembly falls under Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha jurisdiction,” said another BJP leader from RR Nagar.
On August 5, the government formed four panels under senior IAS officers Ujjwal Kumar Ghosh, PC Jaffer, Amlan Aditya Biswas and Dr R Vishal to probe works between 2019 and 2022, and file a report in 30 days. Solid waste management and other development works, permissions for optic fibre cable laying, lakes and smart city works will be probed by the committees headed by these officers.