Krishna aims at Gowda again

BANGALORE, DHNS:

In Karnataka politics letters are flying thick and fast. So also are harsh words and hard facts. Former chief minister S M Krishna on Thursday shot a 19-page letter - his second in four days- to Chief Minister Dharam Singh refuting the allegations against his Congress government, hurled by former prime minister and JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda.

The letter that is specific to allegations made against the functioning of the Bangalore Development Authority during the S M Krishna-regime, at one point wonders at Mr Gowda’s ‘temerity’ to even make the allegations. At another point, it lampoons Mr Gowda’s oft repeated allegation that ‘crores have been looted’ during the previous Congress government as a ‘mental fixation’ of the JD(S) leader.

Mr Krishna who said that during the last four decades of his public life he had the opportunity and privilege to fight many political battles with Mr Gowda, noted that it was Mr Gowda who was primarily responsible for constituting the Justice Grover Commission of Inquiry against late chief minister D Devaraj Urs.

Accusing the former prime minister of suppressing the truth and suggesting falsehood, Mr Krishna said that the former’s sole purpose was to tarnish the image of the Congress. It may be noted that the simmering war of nerves between the State’s ruling coalition partners came to a boil recently when Mr Deve Gowda wrote to the chief minister seeking probes into a host of the actions and decisions of the previous Congress government.

Top among Mr Gowda’s grouses were the progress of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project and the functioning of the Bangalore Development Authority. Some of the factual refutations made by Mr Krishna in his letter on Thursday are:

Allotment of sites

Mr Gowda did not allot a single site to the general public during his own rule in the State. Whereas, as many as 75,000 new sites were formed during the Krishna-led Congress regime. It included 50,000 sites allotted to the public, and corner sites and incentive sites to land losers. These also stand against the previous 10-year period, when only 3,400 sites were allotted.

Tender process

BDA’s pre-qualification norms for tenders were upheld by the High Court in September 2001, when certain affected contractors had sought its intervention by means of writ petitions. In fact both the writ petitions and the writ appeals were dismissed with costs. The over all savings the BDA made by adopting the norms was Rs 1,41,30,236.