As power slips, JD holds on to land grab panel

The Committee, after previously naming businessmen and firms, last week turned its attention on alleged encroachment of government land by Industries Minister Katta Subramanya Naidu’s son Jagadish Naidu and his brother-in-law.

Comprising legislators handpicked by JD(S) President H D Deve Gowda, the Ramaswamy Committee has accused the minister’s son of grabbing nearly 16 acres of government land on the outskirts of the IT capital.

Naidu, who was among the BJP MLAs from Bangalore who initially opposed the creation of the land grab committee, has rejected the allegations, while his son has threatened to sue for defamation.

Jagadish Naidu has argued that the committee has made the accusations on the basis of its own surveyor’s findings and has not bothered to look at official documents.

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress has grabbed the opportunity to call for Naidu’s resignation on moral grounds.

Political observers in Bangalore feel that the land grab committee could now increasingly be used by the JD(S) camp to control and keep in check key BJP leaders. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has publicly stated that the committee would reveal the names of as many as 280 alleged high-profile grabbers of government land in Bangalore.

In the past one month, the committee has pointed fingers at a piece of property once owned but later returned to the Government by Wipro Chairperson Azim Premji and to a property under the control of Larsen and Toubro. Both Wipro and L&T denied the allegations.

The committee, in its second interim report on land encroachment in the Bangalore Urban District tabled in the legislature in July this year, had provided details of the extent of land grabbed but named only a few responsible for the same.

From its findings till the end of May, the committee reported that 30,000 acres under various government departments had been grabbed by as many as 33,812 encroachers in “partnership” with government officials.

According to the committee, while 21,706 acres of land held by the Revenue Department had been encroached upon, 2,179 acres of land with the Forest Department and 2,878 acres owned by the Bangalore Development Authority had been grabbed.