The Hindu : Poojary demands action against Ananth Kumar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 03, 2004

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Poojary demands action against Ananth Kumar

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 2. The Karnataka State unit Congress president, B. Janardhan Poojary, today demanded action against the former Union Minister, Ananth Kumar, and charged him with ``plundering the public finance in complicity with certain private players diverting public funds for extraneous considerations''.

Suggesting that Mr. Kumar, who now heads the Karnataka unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, should be arrested and face investigation, Mr. Poojary, underlined a few instances of the alleged scam in the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), which came under the control of the Urban Development Ministry, when Mr. Kumar was the Minister.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Poojary alleged that a sum of Rs. 550 crores of HUDCO was written off in 2002-03 during his tenure as a Minister whereas the total waiver during the last three decades was only about Rs. 5 crores.

Mr. Poojary said most of the instances, including investments in a private placement bond, paying salary to his personal staff and others were part of the public interest litigation filed by an organisation with which leading legal luminaries were associated.

Emphasising that there was ``no faith in the Central Bureau of Investigation,'' he said the Supreme Court, where the petition was filed, should set up a special investigation team to probe the allegations, which could report to it directly.

Mr. Poojary said the HUDCO scam would be an election issue in the coming Lok Sabha elections as would the other cases, such as Tehelka and the multi-crore fake stamp paper case.

He claimed that the Congress was strong in Karnataka and there was no need for any tie-up/understanding with any other political party. He asserted that the Congress would retain power and that a decision on advancing the Assembly polls would be taken shortly.

Reiterating that a majority of party legislators/members were prepared for the Assembly polls along with the Lok Sabha, he said as per a party survey, the Congress would get two-thirds majority in the State Assembly.

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