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The former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to find the time to study the report prepared by the Law Minister in his own erstwhile regime on the alleged irregularities in the Bengaluru-Mysuru Infrastructure Corridor project of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE). He termed Mr. Siddaramaiah’s poser to him as to what had prevented him from ordering a probe when he was in power as “readymade defence”.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Mr. Kumaraswamy urged the Chief Minister to display commitment by now taking over the project.
On why he had not taken over the project when he was the Chief Minister, Mr. Kumaraswamy maintained that the legal team led by the then Advocate General had “clipped the wings of NICE”. All the contempt petitions before various courts filed by NICE had been quashed by the Supreme Court in July 2019, he maintained.
In a reference to the fact that he led a coalition government then as his party did not have the majority in the Assembly, Mr. Kumaraswamy remarked, “I admit that I did not have the strength to take over the project by ordering a probe against your own party leaders as I was dependent on you to run the government. But you are heading a government with the full majority that walks the talk. Display the commitment now by taking over the NICE project,” he said.
The government-appointed Legislature House Committee led by the then Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra had looked into NICE irregularities from 2014 to 2016 and submitted a detailed report. “Take a bold step forward in implementing the recommendation of the committee,” Mr. Kumaraswamy said.
