Siddaramaiah seeks judicial probe into scams during both Congress, BJP govts.

Bengaluru

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah on Tuesday urged the State government to order a judicial probe headed by a Supreme Court judge into alleged scams during the previous Congress regime and as well as the present BJP government.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has been making false allegations of corruption against the previous Congress government without evidence and misleading people. The Congress government under him ordered CBI probes into eight cases when the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was ruling the Centre, Mr. Siddaramaiah said, and urged the BJP government to go ahead and order judicial probe into all alleged scandals.

Initiating the debate on the State Budget for 2023-24, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the Bommai government wanted to hush up all allegations against it by turning down probes demanded by the Opposition Congress.

The former Chief Minister accused Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan of trying to “instigate” people to kill him and said Mr. Bommai and Home Minister Araga Jnanendra remained silent without taking action against the Minister. He termed Mr. Jnanendra as “the most weak Home Minister”. The Home Department was “useless”, he said, for it had not taken a suo motu case against Dr. Ashwath Narayan, the Congress leader said.

Last week, Dr. Ashwath Narayan’s statement that people should “finish off” Mr. Siddaramaiah on the lines of how 18th Century king Tipu Sultan was, kicked up a row. The Minister then defended the statement saying he meant only “finishing off” electorally.