Union labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge seems to have landed in a controversy over BDA site allotment by seeking re-allotment of a site in HSR Layout that was earlier surrendered by him. Kharge junior has requested for re-allotment of the site after he surrendered and relinquished it, claims Right To Information (RTI) activist B.M. Shivakumar. Priyank and Congress MLA Dr Sharan Prakash Rudrappa Patil also made a joint request to BDA on March 2012 for mutual exchange of their sites allotted under the ‘G’ category.
A site which is once given up to BDA, cannot be re-allotted unless a fresh application is made. However, the re-allotment was approved by BDA commissioner Bharath Lal Meena by allegedly flouting the norms, Mr Shivakumar alleged. Following the controversy over the allotment of ‘G’ category sites, former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s son and member of parliament B.Y. Raghavendra had surrendered a BDA site allotted to him. Mr Raghavendra returned the site when the RTI activist challenged the false affidavit submitted by the allottee saying that he does not own a site or property in Bengaluru.
Later, Priyank Kharge who is said to own property in Bengaluru, returned a 50x80 feet site in November, 2011. It was allotted to him in HSR layout January 2006 by the BDA. According to the BDA norms, a site that has been returned by an allottee cannot be re-allotted to the same person. Priyank’s contention while seeking reallotment of the site is that he was misled by a few officials. He also withdrew his application for cancellation of the allotment.
More interestingly, he is asking for re-allotment and for mutual exchange of the site after constructing a three storeyed building worth at least Rs 1.5 crore including the value of plot 1089/A in 3rd sector, HSR Layout, claimed the activist. On March 22, Priyank along with Dr Sharan Prakash Rudrappa Patil, Congress MLA from Sedam made a joint representation for mutual exchange of their ‘G’ category sites. Mr Patil was allotted the site in October 2007 bearing number 274, 5th Block, Ist Stage in HBR Layout.
“Priyank Kharge’s representation to the BDA for mutual exchange with Mr Patil for a smaller dimension site of 40x60 ft as against 50x80 ft allotted to him in the posh HSR Layout sounds fishy. Not wanting to lose the money invested on the building, Priyank wants to get back the money,” Mr Shivakumar alleged. “The site was allotted to us in 1996 and we did not want to get involved in any controversy pertaining to G category sites. We have a clean record and would like to retain it. So, we returned the site allotted to us in HSR Layout’’, asserted Priyank.