The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Identify land acquired by my family'

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‘Identify land acquired by my family'

Staff Reporter

Details of properties owned by members of Deve Gowda family to be put on website

‘Yeddyurappa raking up the issue only to divert the attention of people'
Kumaraswamy expresses regret over attack on Puttaswamy's house

Spelling out his stand:The former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy producing documents to prove his point at a press conference in Bangalore

BANGALORE: The former Chief Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) State unit president H.D. Kumaraswamy on Thursday dared Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to identify the lands allegedly usurped by members of H.D. Deve Gowda family in Holenarasipura taluk by Friday evening. “We'll arrange a grand function at our cost to distribute such identified lands to the weaker sections of society,” he said.

Mr. Kumaraswamy was reacting to allegations of land grabbing made by Chief Minister's Political Secretary B.J. Puttaswamy and the subsequent statements by Mr. Yeddyurappa that the Government would confiscate such lands and distribute them to poor people.

Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Kumaraswamy said the allegations date back to 1991 when the then PWD Minister G. Puttaswamy Gowda had petitioned the Government to order an inquiry into the alleged land grabbing. The then Mysore Divisional Commissioner Shantha Kumari had prepared the report without even contacting the complainant himself to substantiate his charge.

Not one, but eight writ petitions had been filed before the Karnataka High Court since 1991 seeking action against Mr. Deve Gowda and members of his family on the basis of Shantha Kumari's report. All these cases came to be dismissed as baseless, Mr. Kumaraswamy claimed.

Mr. Yeddyurappa and his supporters are raking up this issue at present only to divert the attention of people, unable to answer the serious charges of land grabbing levelled against the Chief Minister by Janata Dal (Secular), the former Chief Minister said. “If we had committed any illegality, we wouldn't have had any moral ground to level charges against Mr. Yeddyurappa. On the other hand, not a single justification has come from Mr. Yeddyurappa about the charges of land grabbing levelled by the Janata Dal (Secular),” he noted.

“Our family has not acquired even a single piece of property flouting the law of the land. Whatever, we have acquired is as per law. This morning we have decided to soon publish details of all the properties owned by members of our family on a website. If anything more than the published properties are found in our name, Mr. Yeddyurappa is free to confiscate them,” Mr. Kumaraswamy said.

Mr. Kumaraswamy said he recently sought some documents under the RTI from the Urban Development Department to answer charges of denotification of about 500 acres of land in Mysore. However, he was told that all the documents of the department are in the “safe custody” of Mr. Yeddyurappa. On allegations of land denotification in Bangalore, Mr. Kumaraswamy said he had not denotified even an acre of land for which the final acquisition notification had been issued.

The former Chief Minister expressed his regret over the attack on the residence of Mr. Puttaswamy, allegedly by members of Janata Dal (Secular). He appealed to members of his party not to get provoked by any statement or act.

Meanwhile, no one should make provocative statements too, he cautioned.

MLAs Bandeppa Kashampur and B.Z. Zameer Ahmed, MLC Abdul Azim and party leader C. Narayanaswamy were present.

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