Keeping the BJP government on tenterhooks, Governor H.R. Bhardwaj on Thursday declared that he will decide on the complaint seeking sanction to prosecute Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa over alleged land scams in two days.
“Not today, I will give my decision on the issue in two days, will speak to the media then”, he told reporters here, a day after the State cabinet asked him to drop the proceedings on a complaint by a lawyers’ forum.
In a resolution, the cabinet had asked him not to permit prosecution of Mr. Yeddyurappa and Home Minister R Ashoka, saying such a move was nothing short of a “farce and colourable” exercise on his part.
To a query, Mr. Bhardwaj said he had not received “full documents” that he had sought from the government on the denotification of lands for which he had set January 20 as the deadline.
“It is a land scam that has been going on for many days. It is nothing new. The probe in the matter was entrusted to Lokayukta, then he (Chief Minister) said he would give back the lands, then the matter was referred to a judicial commission.” “Everything is known to the media. What do I have to do with this? It is people’s land that has been taken. It is like pot calling the kettle black,” Mr. Bhardwaj, who has a strained relationship with BJP government, said.
“But when people come to me with complaints, it is my right to contemplate about them,” he said.
On the protest call by some BJP legislators against his according permission to prosecute Mr. Yeddyurappa, he quipped “all these things are part of today’s politics. I am not scared of that”.
Earlier, unveiling a book “Karnataka Politics”, he said Karnataka had impressed him most with its rich cultural, historical and political legacy and also the legacy of knowledge.
But in an indirect swipe at the state political scene, he said, “I am visiting various mutts, religious institutions to find out how people in Karnataka have deviated to a slightly indifferent path of politics”.
