Karnataka to review BMIC project

In a move that is bound to sour relations between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), Karnataka Chief Minister N Dharam Singh on Tuesday said he had decided to review the controversial Bangalore-Mys-ore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project.

After paying a surprise visit to the Bangalore Development Authority, Singh told reporters that as a first step the state government had asked the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) not to take up township projects, until the government spelt out its view on the entire project.

Singh, heading the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government, had to face war of words between former Prime Minister and JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda and former Chief Minister SM Krishna, as both shot off separate missives to him hurling charges and counter-charges against each other.

Gowda, in his 29-page letter, called for probe into the alleged land scams in the BMIC project, targetting Krishna, former Industries Minister RV Deshpande and another former Minister DK Shivakumar.

Krishna, rebutting the charges in his 19-page letter, demanded that the government shelve the project. The subtext of the war of words is the struggle between the two major caste groups in Karnataka""the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats"" for political supremacy.

Deve Gowda is well known as a practitioner of Vokkaliga politics and detests former Urban Development Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also a Vokkaliga and actually defeated Gowda's candidates in his constituency.

Shivakumar is known as the right hand man of SM Krishna, a Lingayat and Gowda believes that by targetting Shivakumar, he would be getting at Krishna.

On Monday the state government announced that it had decided to review the permits issued to set up mini-hydel projects by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) by the previous Krishna government.

It is no coincidence that Power and PWD Minister H D Revanna, who is also the son of HD Deve Gowda, was the one who made that announcement. He said he had asked the Energy Department Secretary to furnish a detailed report on the number of mini-hydel projects approved by the previous Congress Government.

The Dharam Singh government is caught between the clash of titans Krishna and Gowda. On the one hand, Dharam Singh""who yielded the chief ministership to Krishna the last time round although there were many in the Congress who thought he had a claim on it""is secretly not at all unhappy to sing Gowda's tune.

On the other, the public slash and burn treatment given to projects initiated by the Krishna regime by a chief minister from his own party, is deeply demoralising the party and could cause serious fissures.

If the Gowda group withdraws support to the Dharam Singh government, the government will fall. Remaining non-committal on whether the government would oblige Krishna, Singh said, "we will review the project and initiate action where ever irregularities had taken place".

"We have to look into the pros and cons of calling off the project as agreements were signed way back 1997", Singh asserted when repeatedly asked to elaborate on what he meant by "review of the project".