On January 23, Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr K. Sudhakar launched into a tirade against Congress, alleging the grand old party’s corruption affected all the programmes and projects over the previous 60 years. Speaking at a press conference as part of the BJP’s Sankalpa Yatra, the minister claimed the term corruption owes its origins to Congress.
He claimed that during the five years of the Congress regime from 2013 to 2018, the government did nothing but commit acts of corruption. He also accused the then-chief minister Siddaramaiah of doing this by establishing the Anti-corruption Bureau and closing down the Lokayukta. According to him, Congress closed down the Lokayukta to bury its scams.
According to Dr Sudhakar, the creation of the ACB and the closure of the Lokyaukta were motivated by between 50 and 60 allegations of corruption against Siddaramaiah. “Our government would have gotten a stay against the high court ruling and not reinstated Lokayukta if we intended to perpetuate corruption," he remarked.
The minister claimed that the 10,000 residents of Bengaluru were wronged and that the CAG audit had identified illicit deals totalling Rs 35,000 crore between 2013 and 2018. He claimed that under the pretence of renovating, more than 900 acres of the property had been denotified. Dr Sudhakar further accused the former Bengaluru Urban Development Minister K. J. George of corruption by raising the white topping estimate from Rs. 292 crores to Rs. 374 crores. He claimed that the company’s original estimate of Rs 75 crore for 9.47 km of tender for road construction was increased to Rs 115 crore.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Siddaramaiah has hit back at Dr Sudhakar, calling him the most corrupt minister and regretted giving him the party ticket from Chikkaballapur in the 2013 assembly polls. Sudhakar had been elected to the assembly in 2013 as a member of Congress but later switched loyalties to BJP and was re-elected to the house in 2019 as a member of the BJP.
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