A complaint has been lodged against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, accusing him of submitting a false affidavit during the 2013 Assembly elections by failing to disclose his wife's ownership of agricultural land. The complaint was filed by TJ Abraham, an activist and President of the Karnataka Anti-Graft and Environmental Forum on July 10 with Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer, Manoj Kumar Meena.
According to the complaint, Siddaramaiah did not include details of his wife, BM Parvathi's ownership of 3.16 acres of agricultural land in Mysuru’s Kesere village in his election affidavit. The affidavit, submitted during Siddaramaiah's candidacy from the Varuna Assembly Constituency in Mysuru district, allegedly omitted this information intentionally.
"The non-inclusion of the details of his wife's properties in his affidavit in 2013 is prima facie with his absolute knowledge and clearly with some ulterior motives on the part of Siddaramaiah," Abraham said in his complaint to the CEO.
The land in question was sold to BM Mallikarjuna Swamy, Siddaramaiah's brother-in-law, on August 25, 2004. It was later converted for residential purposes on July 15, 2005, and subsequently gifted to BM Parvathi in 2010. Siddaramaiah, who was then the Leader of the Opposition, declared this information in his annual returns statement filed before the Lokayukta for the year ending March 31, 2013, the complaint says.
The activist has called for action against Siddaramaiah under Section 125A and Section 8 of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1950, which deals with the submission of false affidavits, and under Sections 227, 229, 231, and 236 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, for allegedly filing a false affidavit.
"The current second-term Chief Minister, former two terms Deputy Chief Minister, former two terms Leader of the Opposition, and a long-term MLA Siddaramaiah cannot feign ignorance of the ownership of 3.16 acres of land that stood in the name of his wife since August 6, 2010," the complaint added.
The complaint has surfaced amid allegations of irregularities against the Karnataka CM in site allotment by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA). It has been alleged that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife, Parvathi, benefited from these irregularities. The Opposition BJP in the state has alleged that MUDA illegally allotted a government site to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi.
Parvathi, who owned 3.16 acres in Kesare village, Mysuru, was compensated in 2021 with 38,283 sq ft of prime land in Vijayanagar, South Mysuru. The allegation relates to MUDA’s 50:50 scheme, where those who lost land for layout development were entitled to 50% of the developed land. Introduced in 2009 and despite two government orders in the past six months to halt site allotments under the scheme, MUDA persisted. A July 1 inquiry order highlighted suspicions that sites were given to influential people and real estate agents instead of eligible beneficiaries.
The opposition alleges this resulted in government losses of up to Rs 4,000 crore and plans to challenge the Congress government in the upcoming legislative assembly session.