At a time the Bharatiya Janata Party is taking the moral high ground on corruption, the land allotment scam in Karnataka involving Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa is turning out to be a severe embarrassment. No matter what party president Nitin Gadkari throws at the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government on alleged corruption in 2G spectrum allocation, the Commonwealth Games, and the Adarsh Society, the BJP will be unable to gain any political advantage without acting decisively in Karnataka. Mr. Yeddyurappa faces serious allegations of nepotism and irregularities: wrongful de-notification of lands and allotment to family members. Moreover, his defence is weak, a political counter devoid of any legal merit. While acknowledging that his family members were benefitted, he claimed that his predecessors belonging to the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) too had made similar allotments. This line of defence makes a strong pitch for a thorough probe into all such instances of de-notification of land, but hardly absolves him of the charges of wrongdoing. Similarly, while the Chief Minister's announcement that his family members would surrender the lands is welcome, it cannot be used to gloss over the serious procedural irregularities and the legal infirmities in the original de-notification and allotments.
Against this background, the judicial probe ordered into such allotments seems to be a move to pre-empt the Opposition, which has taken the issue to the Lokayukta. The probe, which is to cover the period from 1994, when JD(S) leader Deve Gowda was Chief Minister, should not be used to deflect the allegations of corruption and nepotism. Mr. Yeddyurappa cannot seek to extend his stay in power on the ground that a fact-finding judicial exercise is on and some corrective measures have been taken. For the BJP, the land allotment scam could not have come at a more inopportune moment. Not only does this take the force out of its offensive against the UPA on the scams related to the 2G spectrum, the CWG, and the Adarsh Society, it also raises serious questions about the survival of the party's government in Karnataka. Even before the land scam, Mr. Yeddyurappa was clinging on to a slender majority in the Assembly through blatantly unsavoury means. A change at the helm could again result in a shake-up of the BJP's legislature party, and wreck its only government in the south. But whatever be the compulsions, Mr. Yeddyurappa will have to go in the interests of a clean and transparent administration in Karnataka. Whether the BJP will gain or lose on account of his exit is a matter of minor importance.