Karnataka governor Thawar Chand Gehlot’s decision on Saturday to accord sanction to prosecute chief minister Siddaramaiah for alleged irregularities in the allotment of land parcels to his wife by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (Muda) in Mysuru city when he was the leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly in 2021 is sure to kick up a political storm.
The governor’s action, according to him, is as per the provisions of Section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and under Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Samhita, 2023. While the governor is “prima facie satisfied” that there is sufficient material to order a “neutral, objective and non-partisan investigation” into the allegations, the Cabinet called the sanction unconstitutional and illegal. Mr Siddaramaiah has rejected the calls for his resignation and said he will face it legally.
The governor’s action comes on a petition by activists who alleged that Muda assigned 14 alternative sites in the upscale Vijayanagar area of Mysuru to the incumbent chief minister’s wife in lieu of the 3.16 acres the government agency acquired from her in 2014. The allegation is that those housing plots were officially valued at over Rs 8.33 crores in 2023 while the acquired land was worth only Rs 3.5 crores. Given the real land value, the loss for the government would have been around Rs 45 crores.
The chief minister’s rebuttal is that Muda had acquired the land illegally and his wife will give the land parcels back if the government gives her Rs 63 crores which he says is the real value of the land.
He alleges a political conspiracy behind the episode. He maintains that the governor had issued him a show cause notice on the day he was given the complaint. Moreover, while sanctioning his prosecution at lightning speed, Mr Gehlot has been sitting on the applications of the Karnataka Lokayukta seeking permission to prosecute Union minister for heavy industries and steel H.D. Kumaraswamy for irregularities committed during his tenure as CM and to move against former BJP ministers Shashikala Jolle, Murugesh Nirani and Janardhan Reddy as well for close to a year. While the governor has refused to act in the cases of such people, when it came to Mr Siddaramaiah, the sanction was granted even before a preliminary investigation was conducted. According to the CM, Mr Gehlot is acting “as a representative of the Union government and the whole process is part of the attempts by the BJP-led Union government to destabilise the state government by using the governor”.
There are no two ways about it that a proper investigation ought to be conducted into the allegations of irregularities involving the Karnataka chief minister’s wife which is said to have caused a loss to the state exchequer. The governor is justified in his contention that “a neutral, objective and non-partisan investigation” is needed into the affair. But while the governor may be legally right in his decision to sanction the prosecution of the chief minister, which is a rare instance in Indian political history, he will have to answer questions on his selective anxiety over corruption by people in powerful positions. His decisions on the requests by the anti-corruption body for the prosecution of BJP leaders could well offer a clue as to the rationale behind his present action.
