Bangalore:
As if the arrest of former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa was not enough, the BJP in Karnataka is facing more embarrassment.
The man who heads the police force in Karnataka faces an FIR. Home Minister R Ashok, who also holds the transport portfolio, has been booked under the prevention of corruption act. According to a private complaint filed by an RTI activist, two pieces of land in North Bangalore acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority had been illegally denotified in December 2009, allegedly by the minister.
Karnataka BJP's heavyweight and heavy industries minister, Murugesh Nirani, is under scanner too. A private complaint filed against him in the Lokayukta court alleges that Mr Nirani illegally denotified 20 acres of fully developed industrial land near the Bangalore airport. Both Ashok and Nirani were ministers in Yeddyurappa's Cabinet too.
LK Advani has cancelled Bangalore visit as part of the Karnataka leg of his Jan Chetna Yatra after the names of the two ministers surfaced in corruption scam.
BS Yeddyurappa has been arrested for alleged illegal denotification of land when he was the chief minister of Karnataka; Janardhana Reddy, former tourism minister, has been arrested for alleged illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh and is in a Hyderabad jail. Similarly, former IT minister Katta Subramanya Naidu is in jail for alleged role in land scam and former housing minister Krishnaiah Shetty has been arrested for alleged role in land scam.
Except Bellary's Janardhana Reddy who is being probed by the CBI, each of the former and present ministers is being probed by the Lokayukta police, which works independent of the state police. What's even more interesting is that these high profile arrests are based on complaints filed by the common man, in many cases - RTI activists.