Karnataka governor seeks govt reply on charges over land allotment to Kharge trust

As Chief Minister Siddaramaiah fends off Opposition arrows over the alleged corruption in land allotment in the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA), Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot has reportedly trained his guns on Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and sought an explanation from the Congress government in the state as to why 19 acres in Kalaburagi were allotted to his family-run trust, allegedly for free.

The governor’s action comes after a BJP leader filed a petition seeking the dismissal of Priyank Kharge, the Congress chief’s son and a Cabinet minister in the Siddaramaiah government. Priyank has reportedly alleged political bias by the governor, saying Gehlot is very prompt when it comes to allegations against Congress leaders but drags his feet when similar charges are brought against leaders of the BJP and allies.

BJP’s allegations

The BJP has made several claims regarding land allotment to the Kharge family. One allegation, made by Chalavadi T Narayanaswamy, is that the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) allotted 5 acres to the Siddhartha Vihara Trust, reportedly managed by the Kharge family, under Scheduled Caste (SC) quota in a high-tech defence aerospace park in Bengaluru. They have claimed that it is a breach of trust of SC entrepreneurs.

Even as the state government defended the allocation, saying it was done following all rules, with the aim of establishing a skill development centre, the BJP came up with another allegation. BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Lahar Singh Siroya has alleged that 19 acres of government land went for free to another project linked to the Kharge family’s trust — the International Institute of Pali, Sanskrit, and Comparative Philosophy in Kalaburagi.

Priyank’s defence

That is not all. Siroya has further alleged that during the previous Congress regime in the state, another 16 acres had been leased out to the Kharge family trust, and this lease was in 2017 converted to full ownership. He has alleged that Priyank Kharge’s influence as a minister in the previous Cabinet as well as now may have facilitated these land transfers and has sought an independent probe.

Priyank has rubbished the allegations and clarified that the land allotted to the institute concerned was given only on lease. Also, his family does not own it; it was set up by the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and the Karnataka higher education department, as proposed by Pranab Mukherjee in 2011, when he was the Union finance minister.