Land of Siddaramaiah’s wife ‘originally’ belonged to MUDA: Kumaraswamy

Bengaluru, July 13 (IANS) Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy on Saturday said that the land belonging to the wife of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah “originally” belonged to the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and the family has been “compensated” as well.

“The land near Kesare in Mysuru, purchased by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s wife, was acquired by MUDA. The family has also taken the compensation for it. The land rightfully belongs to MUDA. However, the de-notification and subsequent purchase of this land is illegal,” Kumaraswamy said during a press conference at the party’s state office in JP Bhavan. He claimed that the original owner of the land was Linga alias Jawara. “In 1992, MUDA had issued a notification to acquire this land. The final acquisition notification came in 1995. MUDA had already paid for 3 acres and 16 guntas of this land to the court in 1992,” he said.He said that despite the completion of these processes, Linga’s name appeared again in 1998, leading to de-notification. He also questioned the legitimacy of showing the land as agricultural when it was donated to Siddaramaiah’s wife, despite the land having been converted. Kumaraswamy also questioned why no one had verified the background of the land at the time and asked what the District Commissioner doing during the land conversion process.He also pointed out that the de-notification was done under Linga alias Jawara’s name in 1988. “In 2004, Mallikarjunaswamy, brother-in-law of Siddaramaiah purchased the land and applied for land conversion in 2005, when Siddaramaiah was the Deputy Chief Minister,” he said.During the press conference, he also displayed some documents related to the case. “I have all the documents. This is not a hit-and-run case as often criticised by Siddaramaiah. I am providing information along with the documents,” he claimed. “Special Representative at New Delhi from Karnataka, senior Congress leader T.B. Jayachandra submitted the NICE scam report. What have you done about it? Your party members threatened to kill Jayachandra for submitting the report,” he said.–IANSmka/dan