Rs 1,000 crore payoff: BJP targets Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: State BJP chief, B.S. Yeddyurappa declared on Monday that he would send Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to jail within 48 hours of the BJP coming to power in 2018 when the next state elections are due.

Addressing a BJP rally to protest the 'misdeeds' of the Congress government here, Mr. Yeddyurappa said if he became Chief Minister, he would within 48  hours of assuming office order of an inquiry against Mr Siddaramaiah and send him to jail.

" Once the BJP comes to power, I will order an inquiry against Siddaramaiah and his family on their corrupt deals. If my allegations against Congress MLC, Govinda Raju turn out to be false , I will quit politics. I challenge Siddaramaiah to do the same," he said.

Alleging that the BBMP had collected over Rs 3000 crore in tax in the last three years, but  had not remitted the money to its account, Mr Yeddyurappa said he would write to the BBMP Commissioner about revenue collection." We have a lot of documents to prove the misdeeds of this Congress government. We will go before the government based on them," he added.

BJP state general secretary, Shobha Karandlaje,  alleged that the CM’s close aides had received  Rs.60 crore as kickback from contractors for the steel flyover project.  Senior BJP leader, R. Ashok  urged the CM to issue a clarification on his "pay -off" to the high command.

Meanwhile, top leaders of  BJP headed by former CM, Jagadish Shettar and senior leader K S Eshwarappa staged a dharna  and took out a rally in Belagavi demanding the resignation of Small Scale Industries Minister, Ramesh Jarkiholi and a written "confession" from the CM that he had paid Rs 1000 crore to the Congress high command.

Will launch protest to expose BJP: Siddaramaiah
The ruling Congress will soon launch a counter against the state-wide protests by leaders of BJP over an alleged bribe of Rs 1000 crores paid by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to central leaders of the party in order to retain his position.  Announcing such rallies to expose BJP leaders allegedly involved in several scandals, a visibly upset Mr Siddaramaiah told the media in Bengaluru on Monday:"There is not an iota of truth in allegations by BJP leaders against me. The CD which was released by our ministers is case in point where they themselves conceded that charges made against me are far from truth. Therefore, protests like these will not have any bearing on my  reputation."

The Chief Minister also highlighted various cases registered against former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and other leaders of the state unit of BJP  and said "I do not know how to react to a person who is facing more than 20 cases of corruption in various courts, and has even gone to jail once in one corruption case. No doubt Mr Yeddyurappa is the country's most corrupt politician, and his allegations against me smack of political vendetta and nothing more ."