Bharatiya Janata Party members stage dharna in Bangalore Assembly over land denotification issue

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members continued their sit in for the second day on Saturday in the Legislative Assembly demanding a CBI probe into alleged corruption pertaining to denotification of 541 acres in Arkavati Layout of the Bangalore Development Authority.

As soon as the House resumed proceedings, Opposition BJP Leader Jagadish Shettar and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah traded charges against each other, which resulted in chaos with Opposition and ruling members trying to shout down each other.

Shettar demanded that the matter be handed over to CBI as it is a huge scam involving crores of Rupees. He alleged that Siddaramaiah had approved issuing of denotification letter dated June 18, 2014, despite knowing that it was in violation of guidelines laid down by the Karnataka High Court for dropping land acquisition.

"Siddaramaiah is making false allegations and telling a lie. When I was the Chief Minister the file recommending denotification of land had come to me in 2013. But I did not approve it as it was against the guidelines as set by the High Court," Shettar said.

"If I had approved the file, I would have done denotification before the Lok Sabha elections itself. The fact that it wasn't done clearly makes my stand clear. It is Siddaramaiah who has approved after sitting idle over the file for the past one year," he said.

Shettar alleged that the denotification was done during Siddaramaiah's rule in order to raise funds for the recent parliamentary elections.

"It is a massive scam in which crores of rupees have changed hands. Yeddyurappa is being blamed for denotifying ten acres of land, but Siddaramaiah denotified huge tracts of lands," Shettar alleged.