Congress demands dismissing of Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa, legal probe

KEY STORY

• Congress on Sunday demanded the sacking of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa in the wake of reports that two companies in which his grandson Shashidhar Mardi became a director after BJP came to power in the state in July 2019 received Rs 5 crore from seven Kolkata shell companies between March and July 2020.

• Calling it a case of “glaring, patent and shameless case of corruption coupled with brazen inaction and silence”, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, reacting to a report in The Sunday Express, demanded a probe into the matter by a “sitting Supreme Court or sitting Chief Justice of a high court”.

“If you have nothing to fear why are you not appointing. Why not register an FIR under Prevention of Corruption Act,” Singhvi said while addressing a press conference. He said if BJP and Yediyurappa had the “minutest” and “slightest” sense of shame, “he must resign or be sacked”.

• on Sunday reported about the chain of transactions that figured in documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

• The RoC documents scrutinized by The Sunday Express show that Rs 5 crore was transferred through seven Kolkata companies to Belgravia Enterprises Pvt Ltd and VSS Estates Pvt Ltd, where Shashidhar Mardi is a director. Mardi, 30, is the son of Yediyurappa’s daughter Padmavathi V Y.

• The Kolkata companies share common addresses as per filings with the RoC but The Sunday Express visited the locations to find that none of them were operating from there.

• The rent agreements submitted by VSS Estates and Belgravia bear the same Bengaluru address as on June 15, 2020.

Attacking the BJP, Singhvi said, “Misgovernance and corruption go hand in hand as Mahatma Gandhi had said and this has become the signature of the Karnataka government”.

• Singhvi also questioned why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was silent on the issue. “The Prime Minister has maintained an incriminatory silence,” he said.

• Last month, a private TV channel had alleged in a series of reports that the money was part of a quid pro quo for the promise of obtaining government clearance for RCCL, a private firm, to construct a Rs 660-crore government housing project in Bengaluru. Speaking to The Sunday Express, Mardi termed the money as “working loans for a project” for which “all documentation” has been provided.