Siddaramaiah demands CM Yediyurappa's immediate resignation

Bengaluru: A day after the Karnataka High Court dismissed a petition seeking quashing of case registered against Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa for alleged illegal denotification of KIABD lands, when he was deputy CM in the BJP-JD(S) coalition government, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah demanded his resignation to pave way for an impartial probe.

"Since the High Court rejected the request to cancel the probe in the case involving the CM, he is left with no choice but to resign. If he continues to be in the position, it is very likely that he will block the course of the investigation due to his power. Yeddyurappa can influence the probe. The accusation against him is serious and not a common denotification case. The land that was acquired for industrial use has been denotified after being distributed to entrepreneurs. The justices also cited the seriousness of the case in their order," the former CM added.

Taking a jibe at the Prime Minister's Narendra Modi's 2014 statement, "Na khaunga na khane dunga", the former CM asked if he was serious about the allegations against the CM of his own party.

The complaint against Yediyurappa was that as deputy chief minister in 2006 he de-notified a government land and allocated it to entrepreneurs.

Though Lokayukta took up the case in February 2015, Yediyurappa moved the HC in 2019 with a plea that another accused - a Congress leader, RV Deshpande, was let off by the court on October 9, 2015.

Though the court stayed proceedings against the CM in April 2019, on Tuesday it ruled that the case cannot be quashed.

Rejecting the similarities between Deshpande and Yediyurappa, the opposition leader said that there were no illegal denotification charges against the Congress leader.