Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde today said BJP President Nitin Gadkari accusing him of “acting like an opposition leader” had hurt him. “I don’t know why he said so,” Justice Hegde added.
The anti-corruption watchdog has always found himself in the crosshairs of the BJP government in Karnataka. “If he thought so, he should not have asked me to withdraw my resignation when he came here last time,” Hegde said.
“I am anyway an opposition leader for parties in power whenever they are in the wrong.” The Lokayukta chief’s response came in reply to questions on Gadkari’s remarks during his visit to the state recently to take stock of the political situation following charges of scams dogging the BJP government. Hegde had resigned earlier after accusing the BJP government of not doing enough to deal with corruption and to arm the Lokayukta with more powers. However, he withdrew the resignation at the intervention of senior BJP leader L K Advani and an appeal by Gadkari.
Admitting that the withdrawal of his resignation earlier this year was a “mistake”, Hegde, who has seven more months to go, said “till I retire, there is no question of resignation. I have a lot of work to do. I will complete everything and submit a report before I go”. He said there was no institution which was free from corruption including judiciary and journalism.
Emphasising the need to differentiate “between the legitimate rich and the corrupt”, Hegde, who has visited over 192 schools and colleges during his tenure, said he was trying to teach the young minds what is contentment. However, being satisfied with what you have legitimately does not mean one should not be ambitious, “but you should not let your ambition become an obsession”, he said.
“What is needed is zero tolerance towards corruption in general”. Hegde said he will not join politics after his retirement. Responding to a query during an interaction with the media here, he said “let me make it clear I will not join politics once I retire as I am not interested in it”.
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To a question if he will form an anti-corruption forum post-retirement, Hegde said he will set up no such forum but would be “happy to give issue-based support to any institution which fights against corruption and maladministration”.
Hegde attributed complacency on corruption to be one of the main reasons behind its rise. “With corruption now reaching its peak, ostracising the corrupt appears to be the last resort. And, it will have to follow Newton’s Law; whatever goes up will have to come down,” he said.