Bengaluru, Jan. 31: Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda is often referred to as the “son of the soil”. Quite literally. His love for land dates back to the 1960s when he pulled strings to acquire tens of acres of government land by claiming to be a landless farmer and later to transfer the grant land to his kith and kin. Documents made available to this newspaper reveal that Mr Gowda and his family are involved in over 20 such fraudulent transactions.
A report by the then divisional commissioner of Mysore on January 17, 1991 had said Mr Gowda had government land sanctioned to him and his family members in Holenarasipur taluk of Hassan district by way of “darkhasth” and land grant in spite of the fact that he already owned extensive property.
R. Jayaprakash