Mangaluru: Janardhan Poojary held a press meet at the District Congress Office here, on March 16.
Expressing displeasure at the decision of the state government to create ‘Anti-Corruption Bureau’ (ACB) Poojary said, “This appears like an attempt to create a system to protect politicians and senior officials. To set up an ACB is against the law as all ministers and legislatures are public servants and there is no law to avoid any investigation against them.”
He said that the Chief Minister should have consulted with the Advocate General or other prominent advocates of Karnataka before taking the decision of setting up an ACB. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is a prominent leader who has brought many people friendly schemes like, Anna-Bhagya, Ksheera-Bhagya and given nutritious food to the malnourished poor class of the state. “The image of the Chief Minister is clean and no corruption case is registered against him. Now that he is under attack from the opposition and the media, it appears as if he is scared. He should scrap his decision to set up an ACB and come out clean,” he said.
Poojary further said that Lokayukta was set up during the time of Rajiv Gandhi to tackle corruption and was first implemented in Karnataka. Other states had taken Karnataka Lokayukta as a model and formed their own Lokayuktas. “BJP ruined the Karnataka Lokayukta by appointing Justice (retd) Y Bhaskar Rao as the Lokayukta during their rule, who later quit under allegations of corruption. Our Chief Minister should make amends and instead of setting up an ACB, he should make the current Lokayukta stronger. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should not have any black spot in his career and should not give any opportunity to the opposition to question him,” Poojary said.
He took a jibe at the BJP for their attacks on Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and said, “You don’t have the right to question our CM when the Prime Minister is yet to fulfill the promise of setting up a Lokpal. He has also failed to fulfill his promises on all quarters as the autonomy to CBI has not yet been delivered. They have also failed to take action against the CM of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje when she and her son Dushyant Singh were accused of corruption. They have failed to get back Lalit Modi and also have let Vijay Mallya flee the nation despite having a debt of Rs 9000 crore.”
“Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should not act as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and should withdraw the decision to set up an ACB immediately,” he added.