With his son Jagadish Naidu's arrest yesterday, Katta Subramanya Naidu is calling it a political conspiracy and has refused to resign, following demands by fellow ministers.
With his son Jagadish Naidu's arrest yesterday, Katta Subramanya Naidu is calling it a political conspiracy and has refused to resign, following demands by fellow ministers. The origins of councilor Katta Jagadish Naidu's arrest by Lokayukta on a graft charge yesterday lie in his long-time rivalry with Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa's son BY Vijendra, say sources in the BJP. Investigators arrested Katta, a corporator, and son of IT minister Katta Subramanya Naidu while he was offering bribe to a witness in a corruption case against him.
|
|
| Bail Denied: Corporator Katta Jagadish Naidu coming out of the Lokayukta's office at 1.50 am. The police subsequently escorted him to the magistrate's house. Pic/Satish Badiger |
While the development has the IT minister in distress, sources in the BJP are attributing it to his latest wrangle with the CM, and the root cause of the clash is the rivalry between their sons.Jagadish Naidu, who was elected to the BBMP council last March from Vasanth Nagar ward, was nursing aspirations to become mayor and Vijendra was the stumbling block. It is a known secret in the party that they had quarreled many times over the issue. This led to misunderstanding between their fathers.
With speculations rife in the party about Subramanya's ouster from the cabinet, media carried reports on KIADB scam in which Jagadish Naidu was the main accused. And the Chief Minister was understood to have contemplating to sack the IT minister.
Conspiracy theoryAs if in retaliation, a leading Kannada newspaper carried a report on irregularities committed in identification of land near the international airport and the beneficiaries were the CM's sons and relatives.
Following the report, Yeddyurappa had said on Wednesday that there was a conspiracy in his own party to tarnish his image and topple his government, while some senior ministers were trying to mediate for a truce between him and Subramanya.
But yesterday's entrapment came as a blow to the peace efforts, while the development looking more and more like a scripted drama, a source said. Subramanya is understood have called the CM who was in Chitradurga, to express his displeasure over the development and squarely blamed him for his contribution.
Ministers met at the CM's residence in his absence after the arrest, and urged Naidu to resign, but he was allegedly in no mood to listen. A source attend the meting said that Subramanya called the CM in front of everyone to warn him. " If you try to finish me, I will finish you," he is believed to have said.
A visibly disturbed Naidu said after the meeting, "My son has fallen prey to a cheap political conspiracy. I will not resign, come what may, and will continue to fight against these elements."
Yeddyurappa said, "There is no question of asking Naidu to resign. The case is with Lokayukta, and they will deal with it. I don't like to intervene."
| The arrest |
| Jagadish has been accused of receiving around Rs 4 crore compensation from the state-run Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), which acquired 13 acres of land on the city's outskirts that did not belong to him or his family but originally to a farmer Rangaswamy from Jala hobli. The case is with the Lokayukta. Ramanjappa, a prime witness in the case, had complained that Jagadish was offering a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to change his statement, and hence the investigators set a trap. |
