Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], September 24 : BJP MP Jagadish Shettar on Tuesday demanded an "impartial" investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the alleged MUDA land allotment case.
His reaction came after the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday dismissed Siddaramaiah's petition challenging the approval given by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot for conducting investigation against him in the alleged illegalities in Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) allotting sites to his wife.
"Now an impartial investigation has to be started after filing the FIR against the Chief Minister. When his name is involved, his wife's name is there, I insist the CM resign immediately on moral grounds. He has to allow an impartial investigation of the MUDA scam. It is a landmark decision and it has been pronounced by the High Court as per the legal purview," Shettar told ANI.
In his judgment the single judge bench of Justice Nagaprasanna said that the order of sanction for prosecution does not suffer from non-application of mind by the Governor.
It is alleged that MUDA illegally allotted 14 sites to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife in the prime location of Mysuru city. The High Court, in its interim order passed on August 19, had granted a temporary relief to Siddaramaiah by directing a special court in Bengaluru to defer further proceedings and not to take any precipitative action pursuant to the sanction granted by the Governor.
Karnataka BJP president BY Vijayendra also demanded Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's resignation.
"BJP has been relentlessly fighting against the corrupt Congress government. But they said that BJP is doing a political conspiracy against us," Vijayendra told ANI.
"The High Court in its judgment has clearly said that the decision taken by the Governor is correct. Accepting this decision, the Chief Minister should resign immediately," he added.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, however, said that there is no question of resignation and this is "political conspiracy" by the BJP.
Speaking to reporters, DK Shivakumar said, "There is no question (of resignation) by CM. He has not done anything wrong. He is not involved with any scam. This is a political conspiracy by the BJP to all of us, to all the opposition leaders of the country...so there is no question of why the Chief Minister did anything wrong, they are creating problems. We stand by him, we support him. He has been doing good work for the country, party and state."
Shivakumar further denied the setback to the Chief Minister and reiterated that there is a "big conspiracy" against all the leaders of the Congress. However, he asserted that the party respects the legal system of the country.
Reacting to the judgement, Karnataka Congress asserted that the fight against "injustice" will continue. They also accused state Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot of "covering-up" complaints against Kumaraswamy and other BJP leaders.
"The fight against Injustice will continue; there is no question of yielding to the Governor's attempts to destabilize the government or the BJP's conspiracy. It is well known that the Governor has tried to cover up complaints against Kumaraswamy and other BJP leaders. The Governor's questioning of how these complaints were leaked only provides further evidence of his biased politics," the state unit of the Congress said on X.