Bengaluru: Continuing his tirade against Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and his son B.Y. Vijayendra, BJP MLC, A.H. Vishwanath on Friday alleged that Vijayendra was not only interfering at all levels of administration but also had taken kickback in the Rs 21,473 crore upper Bhadra irrigation project contract.
Notwithstanding the party diktat, Vishwanath continued to speak against Yediyurappa and his son, Vijayendra.
Besides this, Vishwanth also raised questions about Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) chairman S.R. Vishwanth, who is considered to be Yediyurappa’s close aide.
The BJP MLC also alleged that the BDA chairman should give details about the purchase of 10,000 beds, pillows, blankets and fans during the first Covid wave to set up one of the biggest Covid Care Center at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) on the city outskirts in last July.
“Had this fully operational CCC existed the state would not have seen so many deaths as the management of this centre was handed over to Vishwanth then. He should be held accountable for so many deaths,” he told reporters while accusing Vijayendra of receiving multi crore kickbacks for circumventing many rules and regulations to award contracts of high value.
Vishwanath told reporters that the state government headed by Chief Minister Yediyurappa has awarded the multi-crore Upper Bhadra irrigation project without taking any formal approval from any authorities concerned besides circumventing many rules.
“My only grouse is against Vijyendra, who is pushing his father to the brink of sending him to jail once again. He is forcing his father to make all wrong decisions which may lead to repeat of the same circumstances in which Yediyurappa had to go to jail in 2009-10. This will be disastrous for the party in 2023,” he said.
He reminded that Karnataka electorate had always voted out corrupt governments in the past, be it Ramakrishna Hegde or S. Bangarappa who lost power after they got embroiled in scams like Bottling scam and Classic Computer scam respectively and the BJP in Karnataka was again staring at similar fate here if the party did not rectify its course right now.
“I am not talking against the party ideology or party functioning. I am raising issues to protect the BJP from falling from grace. I have explained everything to Karnataka BJP in-charge Arun Singh and it is for the party central leadership to take corrective measures,” he said in response to the question.
Justifying his stand to criticise Vijayendra, Vishwanath said that if anyone does wrong and whenever something goes wrong in a family like this, someone must take the lead and do the course correction.
Meanwhile, Yediyurappa said that those who have been making allegations for the last couple of months could not secure an appointment with Karnataka BJP in-charge Arun Singh and he does not want to react to the allegations made by such people.
“Our party and leaders are capable of taking decisions against errant people,” he said.
