Firoz.T.Totanawala
The Bangalore Metro Reporter
1st August 2011 issue-
MINING OWN
BUSINESS!
DOUBLE SHOCK FOR YEDURAPPA!
NAMED IN LOKAYUKTA MINING REPORT-ASKED TO QUIT-REVOLTS
HIGH COURT VACATES STAY OVER HIS PROSECUTION
B. S. Yeddyurappa, is now in
deep trouble. The Lokayukta report on mining has exposed his corruption in all
its nakedness and has dealt a serious blow to him. And within hours, the High Court also has not only vacated the stay
over his prosecution but also dismissed the petition challenging his prosecution.
The report ‘leak’ episode has also damaged his reputation. Now the law of the
land which was ‘blocked’ by Yedurappa & Co. till now is slowly but steadily
catching up with him and the time has come for Yedurappa to reap what he sow.
LOKAYUKTA BANG!
Even before the official submission of the Lokayukta report
to the Government, some extracts of it was ‘leaked’! The Lokayukta Santosh
Hegde has taken serious exception to the ‘leak’ and alleged that his ‘phone’
was tapped! The phone tapping is a serious offence and it is next to impossible
to tap the phones of VIPs without the specific permission of the Chief Minister
and that too, in cases where the concerned person was suspected of
anti-national activities. Nobody in his wildest dream can imagine the ‘tapping’
of Santosh Hegde’s phone and now that, Lokayukta himself has talked of
the ‘tapping’, one should squarely blame the Chief
Minister to this offence. Besides, the circumstances surrounding the entire
episode also point accusing finger at Yedurappa.
As the D- day of submission of Lokayukta Santosh Hegde mining
scam report approached, Yedurappa knew well that his role will be exposed and
was making efforts to find excuses to reject the report after its submission to
the Government. If the report is ‘leaked’ before its submission, it can be a
strong excuse for rejecting the same. In fact, the Government has already ‘rejected’
the Balasubramanian report on land encroachment precisely on this reason. Encroachment
of Government lands to the tune of more than 12 lakh acres in the state, has
named many political big wigs including Yedurappa who had contributed to the
land grabbing.
And now Yedurappa
wanted to use the ‘leak’ factor again to discredit and reject it. However, the ‘leak’ itself could not weaken the ‘exposure’ contents
of the report. The so called ‘leak’ was only a part of the 9000 page report and
as the Lokayukta himself said, there are much more serious issues and villains
in the exhaustive report. As such, there is no danger of the ‘leak’ killing the
report itself.
On the contrary, it
is not easy for the Yedurappa to reject the ‘report’ on the pretext of ‘leak’.
Even if he tries to reject the report, there will be a backlash of public
opinion. The BJP High Command will be hard put to defend the rejection of the
report. In fact, Yedurappa shall have to provide ‘valid’ reasons for rejection
of the report, particularly so, when his name is mentioned prominently.
Moreover, the
Supreme Court too had taken the ‘Interim Report’ of Lokayukta Santosh Hegde
seriously. Its importance can be adjudged by the fact that the Supreme Court
had asked the CEC to include a representative of the Lokayukta in the probe! On
any account, Yedurappa will not be in a position to reject the report.
Still, some sycophants of Yedurappa are preparing the ground for rejection.
It may be recalled that Dhananjaya Kumar had also tried to influence Lokayukta
Santosh Hegde, to leave out Yedurappa’s name in the report for which he got the
snub. Keeping low for few days, Dhananjay is now attacking the Lokayukta
personally. As on now, Yedurappa stands exposed in the report not only for his
protection to illegal mining lobby but also for his personal gain from the
mining loot.
Interestingly Nitin
Gadkari, the national BJP President had earlier said that the BJP can take
action only after the Lokayukta report, and that too if the Lokayukta finds him
guilty. Now that Yedurappa’s corrupt practices, nepotism and favouritism has
been proved by the Lokayukta report, Gadkari had to honour his words! More than
anything, Yedurappa could have saved his face, to some extent, by gracefully
resigning from the CM post himself taking the plea that his name has appeared
in the Lokayukta report! But, he did not resign on his own and was forced to
quit by the national BJP leaders.
HIGH COURT BANG!
In addition, Yedurappa
has received another serious blow in his survival game with the High Court
vacating the stay and dismissing the Writ Petition by his son-in-law Sohan
Kumar over his prosecution. To recall, two advocates had filed criminal
complaints against Yedurappa, his family, some ministers and officials under Prevention
of Corruption Act after obtaining the sanction from the Governor. The CBI court
had directed the Lokayukta police to investigate the complaints. Yedurappa’s
son-in-law Sohan Kumar had challenged the court’s order and obtained stay from
the High Court over the Lokayukta police investigation.
The ‘stay’ was
challenged in the Supreme Court by the complainant advocates who remanded the
case back to the High Court for decision. The High Court heard the matter and
has vacated the ‘stay’ paving the way for investigation by the Lokayukta
police.
It is another
matter that Yedurappa’s legal advisors have foreseen this possibility and so to
pre empt this move, made Yedurappa himself to challenge the sanction given by
the Governor for his prosecution under Prevention of Corruption
Act. In fact, Ram Jethmalani the noted lawyer was brought to Bangalore CBI
Court
It is to be
recalled that when the CBI court gave directions to the Lokayukta Police to investigate the complaint and submit the findings, Yedurappa
had managed the Lokayukta police to delay taking up the investigations on the
pretext of obtaining legal opinion in this regard and used the ‘two days’ of
reprieve to get the stay from the High Court over the investigations. With the
High Court ‘Vacating’ the stay after five months, the Lokayukta police have to
conduct the investigations and that means more trouble for Yedurappa.
FACE OFF
No doubt, Yedurappa
knew the contents of the Lokayukta report during its preparation, through his
own sources and phone tapping. After ensuring that the report gets leaked which
may be used as a tool to reject the report, he flew to Mauritius
The political propriety,
moral values, etc. demanded that Yedurappa resigned himself. The BJP High
Command is taking high moral stand against the corruption, but, Yedurappa
stands as an anti-thesis to all these. More than anything, it is the public
opinion that makes or breaks a politician’s or political party’s fortunes.
Surely, the public opinion is against Yedurappa. The best way for Yedurappa was
to exit with grace which could have saved face for both him and BJP.
But after all, the
lust for power is all powerful; Yedurappa proclaimed that he will not resign.
However, the BJP high command has finally decided to discard their highly
tainted CM, Yedurappa hesitated to
resign and dictated terms even to high bosses. He sought time and successfully
garnered the support of his party members. The political scenario in Karnataka
became tense as the in fight between the State and National unit of BJP became
apparent. There are turn of events every moments and only time will tell us the
political outcome of this magnanimous political drama.
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