Scams,rebellion and Yeddyurappa’s survival were K’taka’s 2010 buzz

On the political front,it was charges and counter charges galore as the ruling government and Opposition crossed swords over various scams. Opposition JDS,with all vindictiveness,levelled charges against the first BJP government in the south,embarrassing the party leadership.

The Opposition parties tried to put the Yeddyurappa government in the docks over illegal denotification of land by him favouring his own family members,compounding the problems of the chief minister who was facing a rebellion from a section of his own partymen.

The simmering discontent among BJP rebels against the “dictatorial” attitude of Yeddyurappa reached its peak in October when 16 MLAs,including five Independents,withdrew their support to the government on the ground that they did not want to be part of the “corrupt regime”.

Yeddyurappa,however,managed to save his government from the brink of collapse by getting the rebels disqualified from their Assembly membership by Speaker K G Bopaiah.

The disqualified MLAs are now engaged in a legal battle challenging the action after the state high court upheld the Speaker’s decision.

Amid intense political activities,Yeddyurappa was forced to take the floor test twice in four days but emerged victorious both the times.

After he won the first trial of strength on October 11 by a voice vote amid pandemonium,Governor H R Bhardwaj rejected the outcome and recommended President’s rule. In a sudden turn of events,Bhardwaj asked Yeddyurappa to take the second floor test on October 14,after the Centre did not act on his recommendation.

Though the BJP government managed to survive its internal revolt,it had to face a series of land scams and corruption charges in the wake of the JDS releasing documents to the media to substantiate its claim. The allegations of illegal denotification of land favouring his family members including sons and son-in-law and allotment of lands to them triggered demands for his ouster.

Karnataka witnessed a caste war for the first time in its post-independent political history with a section of seers of Lingayat mutts rallying around Yeddyurappa to save his chair after the BJP high command made a near unanimous resolve to axe him over charges of corruption.

The BJP high command was virtually left with no option and allowed Yeddyurappa to continue in power after he threatened to pull down the government in the wake of his own castemen throwing their lot behind him.

Already baffled by internecine fissures and scams,the BJP was then battered by the abrupt resignation of Lokayukta Santosh Hegde who accused the Yeddyurappa government of lack of will in curbing corruption.

Hegde,heading the anti-corruption wing in the state,was up in arms against the government for its failure to act on his report on illegal mining in the state. Some ministers of the Yeddyurappa government including the Reddy brothers of Bellary have mining interests and have been accused of being engaged in illegal mining.

The attack unleashed by Hegde and his resignation created tremors among BJP high command which drafted its top leader L K Advani to persuade Lokayukta to withdraw his resignation. BJP chief Nitin Gadkari himself rushed to Bangalore to placate Hegde and managed to convince him to stay in office,to which the Lokayukta obliged.

As BJP was heaving a sigh of relief after the Hegde issue,Congress embarked upon a gruelling 320-km-long

padayatra from Bangalore to Bellary over illegal mining and the public response it generated shattered the saffron party.

The Yeddyurappa government had the last laugh when it banned export of iron ore and also issue of permits to transport the mineral for exports. A number of mine owners challenged the government order,but the state high court upheld the ban.

The year also saw the government ordering a spate of probes into scams allegedly involving Opposition Congress and JDS government on issues ranging from recruitment,irregularities in award of contracts on washing of coal by thermal power plants and others to the Lokayukta.

A judicial probe was also ordered into land allotment and denotification from 1995 till date by Yeddyurappa after he faced allegations of land scams.

Bangaloreans had a rude shock when low intensity bombs exploded outside the Chinnaswamy Cricket stadium ahead of an IPL match on April 17 in which 15 people were injured. While the city police are still trying to unravel the incident and find out those who were behind the blasts,they however managed to identify the culprits responsible for the 2008 serial blasts by arresting some of them including PDP leader from Kerala Abdul Naseer Madani.