Venkaiah Naidu describes charges against Ananth Kumar as baseless

Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu today defended party general secretary HN Ananth Kumar, dismissing allegations about his links with corporate lobbyist Nira Radia as "baseless".

"The Congress is making the allegations to divert people's attention from the 2G spectrum scam," he told reporters here after participating in a function organised to celebrate the birthday of former prime minister AB Vajapyee.

Commenting on the outbursts of governor HR Bhardwaj against the BS Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka, he said the governor was not functioning within the framework of the Constitution.

"The Congress is trying to come back to power in Karnataka through the back door using the governor," he said and asked the opposition party to wait for the report of the judicial commission of inquiry ordered into land scams by the state government.

There have been allegations of irregularities in denotification of lands during the regimes of SM Krishna, N Dharam Singh and HD Kumaraswamy, he said, and wanted to know whether the Congress will take action against them.