Dy CM,Vishwanath gun for each other

MYSORE: In the backdrop of the Bangalore land-grabbing controversy, the alleged landgrabbing scandal of the 90’s in Mysore has come to light once again, with former minister Vishwanath and deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah locking horns on the issue.
Their war of words has also brought out a secret — that a former BJP MLA was involved in the scandal and a JD leader who is in Congress now, prevented the then Patel government from taking action against the MLA.But for the revelations by Siddaramaiah, hitherto many in politics and who are aware of the scandal, were under the impression that JD leaders are the culprits. At a press meet here last week, Vishwanath challenged Siddaramaiah to expose and initiate action against land grabbers who have been indicted by the Vijaybhasker committee report in 1997. "Why must the investigation on land scandal be restricted to Bangalore" he asked, urging Siddaramaiah to add Mysore land scandal to the agenda.
This challenge by Vishwanath was obviously intended to render a pinprick to the deputy CM who the Congress leaders hold responsible for decimating the party in the district. Needless to say, the Vijaybhasker committee made oblique remarks about then Janata Dal leaders’ involvement in the land scandal, besides alleging the connivance of revenue department officials with JD men.
This statement by Vishwanath not only irked Siddaramaiah but also forced him to react sharply and reveal some of the facts about Mysore land scandal.
Siddaramaiah told The Times of India that he is ready to accept Vishwanath’s challenge, but before that, he wanted to ask "why he (Vishwanath) kept quiet from 1999 to 2004 when he was the district in-charge minister and the report was at his disposal."
Accusing Vishwanath of distorting facts, Siddaramaiah said that though initially the Vijaybhasker report made some remarks about a couple of JD men and their role in the scandal, later Baladevkrishna, a senior IAS official and CoD which went into the scandal, not only absolved JD leaders of the charges made by the Vijaybhasker report, it also came out with the names of real culprits who grabbed acres of land and converted them into sites.
"Many do not know that both the Baldevkrishna report and CoD report indicted a then BJP MLA from district and a corporator along with a few others from the city and recommended legal action to recover the land and book criminal cases against the culprits," he said. But a then senior JD leader,who is in the Congress now, prevailed upon the then chief minister J.H. Patel not to initiate any action against the MLA, he added.