It all began on a light note. As HD Revanna, Janata Dal(Secular) veered away from his speech on budget to touch NICE land acquisition, temperature rose.
In spite of speaker KG Bopaiah's warning to stick to budget, Revanna stayed put on NICE road. This prompted chief minister BS Yeddyurappa to intervene. He told Revanna not to indulge in “hit-and-run” tactics. The chief minister asked the JD(S) leader to have a threadbare discussion on the issue of notification of 5,000 acres, during the JD(S) regime in 1998.
Revanna accused the state government of conniving with NICE, the company which is executing the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project (BMIC). “The state government has kept mum even as NICE is changing the alignment of the BMIC expressway and acquiring excess lands by paying a pittance to the farmers. The project has dealt a mortal blow for 13 lakes,” Revanna said.
Displaying documents, Revanna accused the state government of turning a blind eye to violation of the framework agreement by NICE. Revanna's allegations drew an angry reply from Yeddyurappa as he described the project as “an illegitimate child of the JD(S)”. “You fathered it and you’re trying to blame me for your sins,” he said.
Yeddyurappa challenged Revanna for an elaborate debate in the assembly on Friday to present all the facts related to the project before the people. “It is the earlier JD(S) and Congress governments that are responsible for the present mess. They are trying to malign the BJP government to cover up their own mistakes,” he said.
The house later decided to hold a detailed discussion on the project on Friday to decide the future course of action on the BMIC project.
The land row also erupted at the fag end of Thursday's assembly session. Congress leader TB Jayachandra objected to the words “developer and co-developer” in a bill moved by revenue minister G Karunakar Reddy. It was meant to give concession to developers of special economic zone. He said that 'developer' could be misused by real estate people. He was joined by opposition leader S Siddaramaiah. It took lot explanation by senior minister Jagasish Shettar to convince the Congress leaders that encouragement of real estate was not the intention of the bill.
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