'Kharge family's trust given 19 acres of govt land for free,' BJP fires fresh land scam charge at Siddaramaiah

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday came up with another set of documents to claim that a trust run by Congress President Mallikarjuna Kharge's family was given 19 acres of government land in Karnataka's Gulbarga for free. 

In a series of tweets, BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Lahar Singh Siroya said that new documents revealed that 19 acres of government land was given for free to the International Institute of Pali, Sanskrit and Comparative Philosophy in Gulbarga, run by the Siddhartha Vihara Trust managed by the Kharge family. 

"Trustees of the Siddhartha trust include Kharge's wife, son-in-law, and two sons," the BJP leader said. "The secretary of the Pali Institute is Shri Radhakrishna, the son-in-law of Shri Kharge and sitting Gulbarga MP. Recently, it had come to light that the Siddhartha Vihara Trust was granted 05 acres civic amenities land in the aerospace park, near Bangalore. 

In March 2014, Siroya said, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government gave 16 acres of government land on lease for 30 years to the Pali Institute. In a couple of years additional land of 3 acres was added to the 16 acres leased property, he added. 

"And finally, in March 2017, all 19 acres were transferred FREE of cost to the Kharge family-run Institute by the Shri Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. An important fact is Shri Kharge's son, Shri Priyank Kharge, was a cabinet minister in the then Karnataka government, like he is now, when the land was granted." 

The BJP MP demanded a probe into this government land transfer by an independent agency. "I demand that this land transfer of 19 acres, like the KIADB (Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board) land grant of 5 acres, should be probed by an independent agency. I have been abused and personally targeted for pointing out the alleged misuse of power and nepotism of the Kharge family in Karnataka. But, if the Kharge family believes in the principles of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Lord Gautama Siddhartha, they should themselves seek a probe," he added. 

In the concluding statement, Siroya asked whether the Siddaramaiah government was under any pressure from Kharge to grant parcels of land to their private trust or was the Congress government in Karnataka trying to please the Congress President. 

The land scam charge against the Kharge family came last month when Siroya said that the Siddhartha Vihara Trust had been allocated 5 acres of land meant for civic amenities, under the SC quota. However, the Congress chief's son Priyank Kharge defended the land allotment, saying there was no illegality in it. 

"BJP can say what they want. But they have to tell the people how is it illegal and what is illegal. It is a CA (Civic Amenity) site. It is not an industrial plot. It's an educational thing," Priyanka Kharge said.