Firoz.T.Totanawala The Bangalore Metro Reporter THE BBMP WALL COLLAPSES ON THE CM SAFEGUARDING THE DONS AND CRUCUFYING THE ROWDY WILL BE TOUGH FOR THE CM

FIROZ.T.TOTANAWALA

THE BANGALORE METRO REPORTER 

 THE BBMP WALL COLLAPSES ON THE CM 

 SAFEGUARDING THE DONS AND CRUCUFYING THE ROWDY WILL BE TOUGH FOR THE CM 

 Every one knows that the civic agencies primarily do not work for the welfare of the people. They merely execute contracts with the intentions of making out bucks of it. And unfortunately for them, they do feature in the headlines occasionally when people face a drastic consequence due to their negligence. 

 The recent instance of a BBMP retaining wall in Hebbal collapsing and killing the innocent Sanjana has become a burning issue for the state again. An enquiry was ordered and even Lokayukta submitted the report that revealed what we all know from years. The works carried out by the Contractor Munirathna, who is now a corporator were of sub standard quality and held Contractors and the Engineers responsible for Sanjana’s death. The Mayor then ordered the suspension of the Chief Engineer and black listing of the contractor. 

 However, if we check all the works executed by the BBMP worth rupees thousands of crores, we can sum up to say that all the works are of sub standard quality and the bills that are claimed for the same works are all highly inflated. Obviously, the execution of civil works for the benefit of the tax paying citizen have become a business for the MLA’s, Corporators and the officials of the BBMP who work hand in gloves. 

 Whatsoever, the BBMP is now planning to disqualify Munirathna from the council and this has become a controversy for the government. The Mayor has asked the Corporator to resign from his post or he will send recommendation to the Chief Minister to disqualify him. The Corporator will not resign himself because they actually spend crores of rupees to get elected and cannot ruin their investment. Now the Mayor has the option to recommend his disqualification to the CM. As Munirathna is a Congress Corporator and the Mayor belongs to the BJP, the Chief Minister will now be in a perfect dilemma. It will be difficult for him to reject his own Mayor’s recommendations and will have to disqualify Munirathna under the Office of Profit and Conflict of interests as filed against him. 

 But the matter will not end here. In case the CM disqualifies him on the grounds of Office of Profit or Conflict of Interests, the CM will lend himself in trouble as it will lead to another controversy. The CM will have to apply the same hard stick to some of his own Ministers of his cabinet who have rampantly engaged themselves in exploiting the resources of the state up to the tunes of crores. 

 Take the instances of the powerful Reddy brothers. After helping the BJP to win the Karnataka assembly elections, they have literally held the state to ransom. In spite of the rampant illegal mining in the state they have forced Mr. Yedurappa to leave the mining lobby untouched. 

They forced the CM to withdraw the special toll tax on ore carrying lobbies which could have fetched the state exchequer at least rupees 500 crores per year. They further, forced the CM to post back all the Reddy loyalist officials in the revenue, police, and forest and survey departments in their mining capital Bellary. It is due to their pressure that Mr. Yedurappa is sitting quietly on the Lokayukta report on Mining scam submitted in December 2008. They have also successfully signed a MoU with the state for establishing a 35000 crore steel plant in Bellary. 

 All these qualifications of the Reddy brothers are more than enough to disqualify them from the cabinet. In fact, it is more of an emergency to disqualify the Reddy brothers first than to disqualify Munirathna. Now, if the CM disqualifies Munirathna, he will have to answer the continuation of the Reddy brothers in his cabinet. 

 Munirathna is also a culprit for having executed a public work of sub standard quality thereby leading to a death of an innocent girl. He must be expelled and black listed. But just because he is a member of the opposition party, it does not mean that Mr. Yedurappa can nail him and safeguard the bigger criminals and exploiters who are part of his own team. The Chief Minister is in a complete fix. Let us now see how he rescues himself from this mess.