The opposition Congress today strongly urged Governor H R Bhardwaj to initiate appropriate action against Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa for “phone-tapping”, leakage of Lok ayukta report, and allegedly trying to influence N Santosh Hegde through three others.
A Congress delegation led by President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee G Parameshwara and Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Siddaramaiah visited Raj Bhavan and submitted a memorandum to the Governor on the “recent political developments”in the state.
The Congress said Higher Education Minister V S Acharya, Special Representative of Karnataka Government in New Delhi, V Dhananjaya Kumar and Chairman of Task Force for implementing the third finance commission A G Kodgi, recently met the Lok ayukta and tried to influence him not to indict the Chief Minister in the final report on illegal mining.
The party also said the Lok ayukta also made a startling revelation that his phones had been tapped.
Thirdly, a portion of the Lok ayukta report was leaked. “This is a deliberate attempt to bring disrepute to the office of Honourable Lok ayukta, to damage the sanctity of the report and minimise the impact of the findings,” it said. “It is common knowledge that the immediate beneficiary of all the above illegal and unlawful acts are Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his Cabinet colleagues," Congress said.
It urged the Governor to take congnisance of the "issues involved and set the law in motion" to ensure Yeddyurappa, Acharya, Kumar, Kodgi and other persons who are involved in "this criminal acts" are "suitably punished" under the laws of the land.
