A open political war was declared between the governor and chief minister of Karnataka, after the former gave legal sanction to an application to prosecute the latter, in alleged land scam cases.
The party’s central leadership decided to meet President Pratibha Patil on Monday to demand the governor’s recall and simultaneously start a statewide agitation against the governor. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa had earlier demanded that Bhardwaj apologise to the people of Karnataka for biased actions against the state government.
Terming the decision constitutionally improper and politically motivated, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the decision was taken even before any conclusion of probe by different agencies into the alleged charges. “Even as the investigations are on, the Governor is behaving like a prosecutor himself. We will discuss the developments with our Karnataka unit and take a decision on further action,” said Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
The new problem for the government began after Bhardwaj said on January 18 he was studying a petition by two lawyers who had sought prosecution sanction against Yeddyurappa and the home minister for alleged involvement in transferring government land in the name of their family members.
“Since the decision of the Governor is politically motivated, we have also decided to go to the people and raise this issue. We are going handle this political decision in a political way. We will take legal action to challenge this decision of the Governor. We are also going to inform the people how the Governor has been acting against the democratically elected government of the state for the past one-and-a-half-years,” said Sadananda Gowda, MP and former state party head.
The party’s central leadership and the state government have said Bhardwaj’s actions were biased and sanction to prosecute Yeddyurappa could not be given as no government authority had found anything against the CM or any other minister.