BJP accuses Cong govt of stalling report on wakf land scam

The BJP today accused the Congress Government in Karnataka of trying to stall a report on the alleged scam of over Rs 2.30 lakh crore involving the Wakf Board land and said it should be tabled in the Assembly.
"It is compulsory. They have to table it on the floor of the legislative assembly," former Karnataka Minorities Commission Chairman Anwar Manipaddy, who gave the findings, told reporters here.
Manipaddy had submitted the report to then Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda in which he had alleged involvement of powerful politicians, several Wakf Board members, Wakf officials, middlemen and land mafia in the scam.

A committee was constituted by the then government in November 2011 following complaints and media reports on the role of politicians and Wakf Board officials in the illegal sale of land to individuals, to inquire into the issue.
Asked why the report was not tabled in the assembly during BJP's five-year rule, Manipaddy said he had only ten months to take the issue to a logical end, but before the BJP government's term ended, it had done well to approve the report in the cabinet.
"Our government had 10 months time - in that period we took legal opinion, and later passed in the cabinet, and while tabling in the House these people manipulated and went missing - these bureaucrats. Therefore we were not able to table it in the assembly during our rule," he said.

But, Congress government now is making all efforts to stall the report from being placed before the public by saying that the BJP had manipulated the report to suit their political needs by targetting a particular community, he alleged.
Manipaddy declined to reveal the names of politicians involved in the scam, saying "it is left to the Assembly to do so." To a question, he said many middlemen, land mafia and politicians have been involved in the scam.