Land 'scam:' MUDA chief defends Siddaramaiah

Mysuru, NT Bureau: Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) Chairman K Marigowda and three more Congress lawmakers held a press conference in Mysuru on Monday to defend Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his wife Parvati.

Marigowda and MLAs K Harish Gowda, Ramesh Bandisiddegowda and MLC D Thimmaiah insisted that the couple hadn’t been involved in any wrongdoing with respect to allotment of land in what is being called the MUDA scam.

The issue is rooted in the 50:50 scheme, which dates back to 2020 under the BJP State government. It compensates people who have lost land to MUDA with either 50 per cent of the developed sites or an alternative plot which is half the size of the land they gave up.

The allegation is that several influential people, including political leaders and real estate agents, have received alternative land of much greater worth in areas where land had greater guidance value, resulting in massive losses to MUDA. It is also claimed that many received more alternative plots than they were entitled to.

Siddaramaiah confirmed that his brotherin-law Mallikarjun had bought three acres and 16 guntas of land in Kesare village near Mysuru city’s Outer Ring Road and gifted it to his sister and the CM’s wife Parvati. He said that MUDA took over this plot for a layout without compensating Parvati.

His wife was allotted 14 alternative sites amounting to 38,284 square feet in the sought-after Vijayanagara locality’s third and fourth stages in the south of Mysuru city.

Marigowda said that Parvati’s land had been taken over by MUDA in 2014, following which she wrote to the body requesting an alternative site but to no avail.

The MUDA Chairman said that she did the same in 2017 but once again was unfruitful, proving that she wasn’t the beneficiary of any special treatment when her husband was the Chief Minister