What’s beneath Mysore site allotment controversy in which Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah is embroiled

Kumaraswamy, who is the leader of the Janata Dal Secular party, an ally of the BJP in the Centre, has claimed that the controversy over the alternate land allotment scheme in Mysuru is a result of a tussle in the Congress party for the CM’s post between Siddaramaiah and deputy CM D K Shivakumar.

“Why has a scandal that did not come out for so long come out in the open now? Behind the scenes there is the role of a person wanting to claim the CM’s chair,” Kumaraswamy said on Friday.

The BJP is protesting about the alleged scam but the Congress government is helping leaders of the party overcome the alleged alternate land allotment scam, he claimed.

Shivakumar denied the allegations. “Kumaraswamy’s allegations, that I have a role in exposing the MUDA scam, is baseless. He has lost his mental balance and he badly needs treatment,” he said.

He claimed this week that there are no scams in the Congress tenure that began in May 2023. “All the scams that the state witnessed have taken place during the BJP tenure (2019 – 2023). We will respond to all allegations during the (legislature) session,” Shivakumar said.

The alleged illegal alternate site scam

According to estimates by RTI activists, who have revealed the existence of the illegal alternate site allotment scheme in Mysuru, over 6,000 sites have been allotted under a scheme known as the 50:50 scheme in the last four years. Under the scheme, land holders whose land is acquired by the MUDA have been allotted high value alternate sites as compensation.

There are allegations that people who did not lose land in Mysuru were also given high value alternate sites under the scheme.

The alternate site scheme was drafted on November 20, 2020, by the MUDA members, including the Chairman and Commissioner, for distributing sites to land losers on a 50:50 ratio basis. The MUDA was warned against implementing the scheme on May 4, 2021, and March 14, 2023, by the state Urban Development department.

“The Deputy Commissioner of Mysore has written 17 letters to the MUDA from 08.02.2023 to 09.11.2023 and finally to the Urban Development Authority, Government of Karnataka on 27.11.2023 on the 50:50 ratio scam and necessity for a probe against the MUDA Commissioner. Despite this, the commissioner of MUDA has allotted thousands of sites without fear of law,” farmer rights activists Kurubara Shanthkumar said in a letter to the Governor on July 5.

Former BJP revenue minister and leader of opposition R Ashoka, who has participated in protests over the allotment of land to the CM’s wife under the scheme, has claimed that the alternate site allotment scam has cost the state Rs 4,000 crore since prime housing sites have been allotted in lieu of land acquired in areas where the land value is low.

Although the scheme was flagged as being illegal in 2023 by Mysuru district officials like Deputy Commissioner K V Rajendra and was cancelled after the Congress came to power in May 2023, it has continued to operate, BJP MLC H Vishwanath alleged in a joint press conference with RTI activists who have obtained documents for the scheme.

“Despite the cancelling of the provision for the 50:50 scheme in the year 2023, there have been allotments in 2024 until last month. Over 6,800 sites have been given in the last four years,” the BJP MLC alleged this week.

BJP MLC Vishwanath, a former Congress minister, has alleged, “All elected representatives are involved along with MUDA authorities in the scheme to get alternative sites allotted at high value localities. From ministers to MLAs, are all involved. The minister for urban development is a real estate operative.”

The BJP MLC has accused state Urban Development Minister Byrathi Suresh, a close associate of CM Siddaramaiah, of continuing to run the 50:50 scheme in the Congress tenure. The Urban Development Minister in the BJP government, when the 50:50 scheme was created, was incidentally Byrathi Basavaraj a cousin of the present Congress Urban Development Minister.

Vishwanath has demanded a CBI probe and asked Siddaramaiah to donate the alternate land granted to his wife by the MUDA in 2021 for a public cause. However, Siddaramaiah has claimed that his wife has to be compensated to the tune of Rs 62 crore for returning the land allotted to her.

“The family of the CM has fallen prey to greed for money. This is none other than the socialist and leader of backward classes Siddaramaiah. Please surrender the site and retain your reputation as a leader,” Vishwanath said in Mysuru on Friday.

“Issue a direction for creation of a cancer hospital, create a college for special children. If you fail to do so you will have a tainted legacy. If you ask for Rs 62 crore compensation it is a dent on your reputation,” said Vishwanath, who belongs to the same OBC Kuruba community as the Karnataka CM.

The BJP has staged protests calling for a CBI probe into the alleged illegal alternate land allotment scheme in Mysuru.

“Why do they want to hand over everything to the CBI? No cases were handed to the CBI when the BJP was in power. It is the BJP which created the rules to provide alternate sites to those who had given up land. This is not a matter of a CBI probe,” Siddaramaiah said. “What is my role in this case?” the Karnataka CM asked.

Officials transferred

The Karnataka government transferred Mysuru DC K V Rajendra on Friday as a part of the transfer of 21 IAS officers. Rajendra, who was in-charge of the region from the fag end of the BJP tenure in early 2023, wrote as many as 17 letters to the government pointing out the problems and illegalities in the 50:50 alternate land allotment scheme of MUDA.

Prior to the transfer of the Mysuru DC, the state had transferred four MUDA officials, including the chairman and commissioners over the alleged continuance of the alternate land scheme.

“Those involved in the land transfers scheme have been transferred and a senior IAS officer has been asked to investigate,” CM Siddaramaiah said this week. The plot allotments have been put on hold and a final decision will be taken after a report is submitted, he said.

MUDA commissioner Dinesh Kumar has been transferred out since the allegations of the scam but activists have alleged that no action has been initiated against him or previous MUDA officials who were responsible for drafting the alternate land scheme in 2020.

“When the MUDA was unable to acquire land at a break-even price, it came up with the idea of handing over a portion of developed land to the person from whom it was acquired as per the Act,” Shanthakumar said.

The alternate land granted to the CM’s wife under MUDA’s 50:50 scheme

The fact that Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvati Siddaramaiah is among the beneficiaries of the MUDA alternate land allotment scheme has made the alleged scam high profile.

According to land records and details of the property of the CM’s wife that have been placed in the public domain by RTI activists and the legal advisor to the CM, the CM’s wife was gifted a 3.16 acre parcel of land in survey number 464 at the Kesare village on the outskirts of Mysuru by her older brother Mallikarjun Swamy in the year 2010.

Subsequently, the family learned that the 3.16 acre of land had been acquired by the MUDA along with some other land to create a layout without reportedly informing the land owners

In 2014, when Siddaramaiah was the CM of Karnataka for the first time, his wife approached the MUDA with a request for alternate sites in lieu of the acquisition of her land by the agency.

The request was reportedly pending with the MUDA until the formulation of the controversial 50:50 alternate land allocation scheme during the BJP tenure.

The scheme was created in November 2020 and in 2021, Siddaramaiah’s wife was allotted 38,284 sq feet of alternate land (0.88 acre) amounting to 14 housing sites (valued now in the range of Rs 20 crore) in the more prime Vijayanagar area of Mysuru by the MUDA.

The original purchase of the 3.16 acre of land by the CM’s brother-in-law was reportedly done on August 25, 2004.

The records for the land put in the public domain by the BJP MLA Vishwanath and RTI activists indicate that it originally belonged to two Dalit farmers. It was, however, sought to be acquired by the MUDA in 1992 and preliminary notifications were issued for acquisition. The final notification for acquisition in 1996-97 indicated a compensation Rs 3.2 lakh for the land.

However, the land acquisition process was later dropped in 1998 by the MUDA and the land marked for acquisition was denotified by the government when Siddaramaiah was a deputy CM. After the land was denotified, it was subsequently bought by Siddaramaiah’s brother-in-law on August 25, 2004, and was gifted to Siddaramaiah’s wife on October 16, 2010.

“MUDA illegally acquired our land. They later admitted their mistake and offered us sites under the 50:50 scheme,” Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said this week. Under the 50:50 scheme land losers receive 50 per cent of developed sites in a proposed housing colony.

“MUDA should have compensated with the same extent of land they acquired. Can I let it go just because I am the CM?” Siddaramaiah asked.

“The compensation received by his wife is being depicted as a big scam. Though she received less than the land she lost, she did not contest the compensation,” Karnataka CM’s legal advisor A S Ponnanna said in a press briefing.

Origins of the land bought by Siddaramaiah’s family

BJP MLA H Vishwanath has alleged that the CM’s brother-in-law bought property belonging to Scheduled Castes – which is barred from sale – and then gifted it to his sister. “The land was denotified in the name of the SC/ST owners and it could not have been bought,” BJP MLC Vishwanath alleged.

Incidentally, thousands of acres of land acquired in and around cities like Bengaluru and Mysuru for private purposes were originally government lands granted to landless SC/ST community members.

Politicians, big builders are among persons alleged to have acquired these parcels of land that were barred from acquisition under The Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978.

The Congress government, after it came to power in 2023 under Siddaramaiah, in fact introduced the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands (Amendment) Act, 2023, to remove time curbs to invoke the act.

The Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978, which came into force in 1979, was originally enacted to ensure that land granted to the less privileged should be restored to the original grantee or their heirs even if the land has been procured by others. The law lies at the core of hundreds of land disputes.

The law bars the transfer of land even by means of “a sale, gift, exchange, mortgage (with or without possession), lease or any other transaction”. Hundreds of acres of land acquired by top politicians in Karnataka are purported to have originally been SC/ST land that were acquired by means of gift deeds and other means.

“In order to enable SC/ST land grantees to appeal for restoration of land, suitable amendments will be made to the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978 by prescribing timeline in the Act itself,” Siddaramaiah had stated ahead of bringing in the law.

Following Siddaramaiah’s demand that his family should be paid Rs 62 crore as compensation for letting go of the 38,284 sq feet of land in Mysore, Kumaraswamy said that the Karnataka CM should also give compensation to farmers who have lost their land in the past and were reduced to poverty as others enjoyed the rise in value of their land.

“The CM is saying that the government should give a compensation of Rs 62 crores. Does Siddaramaiah not know the plight of the people? Do you not know the pain of the poor in the state? They acquire land overnight,” Kumaraswamy said.