Speaking to media, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the immediate resignation of the Chief Minister should be the starting. He said the state should call for and give consent for a CBI probe.
JD-S asked Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde to file cases against some ruling BJP leaders, including Higher Education Minister V S Acharya, for allegedly trying to influence him ‘to save’ Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on the illegal mining issue.
“Lokayukta should file case against Acharya, State’s Special Representative in Delhi V Dhananjayakumar and former chairman of the Finance Commission, Kudgi and order for their arrest,” state JD-S President H D Kumaraswamy told reporters.
He also demanded the resignation of the Yeddyurappa government on moral grounds over this issue.
Left parties on Thursday demanded his resignation, saying the BJP leader has no moral authority to continue in his office. “It’s a very serious indictment and I think during this serious indictment the chief minister should not continue in his office,” Rajya Sabha member and CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechuri told media.
On Thursday, the Karnataka high court allowed the police to question the chief minister and his family over illegal land deals, and lokayukta justice Santosh Hegde prepared to release a report accusing Yeddyurappa, four ministers, political opponents and bureaucrats of corruption linked to illegal mining.
More than 500 people, among Karnataka’s most powerful, have been named in the second report on illegal mining – the first was in 2009 – of about 8,000 pages, a source said.
Lokayukta investigators checked more than four lakh bank accounts to track money trails and identify about 4,000 people linked to illegal mining.
The report said illegal mining cost the government Rs 1,827 crore in dodged taxes and other levies between April 2009 and May 2010.
“Every party has its hands in the till,” the source said. Over the past 17 years, 11,600 sq km of land has been opened to private mining. That’s more than 15 times the area of the National Capital Region of Delhi.Meanwhile BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar alleged that available facts are selective leaks presenting a biased story only.
Meanwhile Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni on Thursday called for a thorough enquiry on the Karnataka Lokayukta report in which Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa is involved. She media that the Chief Minister should think over his continuation in view of the Lokayukta report. Informally talking to reporters she made it clear that she came to know about it only through the newspaper reports.