BENGALURU: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s family-run trust Sunday withdrew an approved request for a five-acre site within Bengaluru’s Aerospace Park for a proposed “multi-skill development centre“, less than a fortnight after Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah‘s wife surrendered 14 plots amid an investigation into her land-swap deal with Mysore Urban Development Authority (Muda).
“We withdraw our proposal and request the board to cancel the allotment of the CA (civic amenities) site, per Clause 8 of the allotment letter,” Rahul Kharge, one of the AICC chief’s sons and chairperson of Siddhartha Vihar Trust, said in a letter to the CEO of Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board.
The site was allotted to the trust in March, prompting BJP to accuse the Congress govt of favouring the party president’s family. The trustees include Kharge, his wife Radhabai, elder son and minister Priyank Kharge, son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani, and Rahul.
“An educational institute cannot function effectively while facing mala fide, baseless, and politically motivated allegations… We do not wish to be drawn into controversies that will divert our attention and efforts from our primary objective of empowering the disempowered through education and social service,” states the letter to the board.
While the request for land had been approved, the site was still to be handed over to the trust, sources said.
Defending his brother’s decision, Priyank said BJP tried to create “a needless controversy” and the family decided to step back rather than make an issue of it. The Kharge family had been stoutly defending the land allotment until recently.
“Rahul is a mild-mannered person who does not know how to counter these politically-motivated allegations, unlike us who are in public life. Siddhartha Vihar Trust is an educational, cultural, and charitable trust, and not a family or private entity,” Priyank said, also taking a dig at Union home minister Amit Shah without naming him. “The irony is that a person who cannot hold a bat can become the chairman of ICC or BCCI when BJP governs at the Centre, but a person (Rahul) who was conferred Agni Award by DRDO for excellence in self-reliance cannot build a skill development centre for the youth. So, he felt bad and decided to return the plot.”
BJP MP Lahar Singh Siroya wrote on social media that he felt vindicated by the Kharge family’s decision to return the land. “When I raised this issue, I was threatened and abused by Kharge Jr and his cronies. Truth has prevailed,” he said. The legislator suggested that since Siddaramaiah was on shaky ground, the return of land could even be a ploy to gain moral advantage. “This may be a tactical move to seek the CM’s chair,” he said
BJP had called for a CBI investigation into the land allotment and petitioned the governor to dismiss Priyank from the state cabinet.
When the controversy broke, CM Siddaramaiah had said, “The allotment has been done in accordance with law. Their trust is eligible, so we have done it.”