UNI

Bangalore, Aug 2: Mounting allegations of corruption against Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and his family, the Congress on Tuesday alleged that it had bought a sprawling Rs 85 crore worth building, housing IT park on a 9.72 acre plot, just 51 days after he took over as Chief Minister.

Producing evidence about the property near Doddanakundi village on the outskirts of the city at a hurriedly called press conference here, former minister and Congress leader D K Shivakumar alleged that six persons in the Chief Minister's family, including his wife, his two sisters and a brother, had bought the property in March and asked whether it was purchased from the Rs 150 crore bribe allegedly received from the mining lobby. The Congress demanded a CBI inquiry into the deal, besides its confiscation and public auction.

Reiterating his party's demand for a CBI inquiry into the bribery case, he said when the family could buy such a big property within such a short span of Kumaraswamy becoming the chief minister, it remained to be probed how many more such properties it had acquired clandestinely. The building fetched a monthly rent of over Rs 46 lac and an advance of Rs 1.40 crore.

Claiming that there was a link between the new purchase and suspended Bharatiya Janata Party MLC G Janardhan Reddy's bribery allegation, Shivakumar asked "Kumaraswamy calls himself a humble farmer who does not own even an inch of land. If that is the truth, from where did the money come to purchase the property". He said the property was registered in K R Puram sub-Registrar's office for over Rs 36 crore, whereas the market value was Rs 85 crore. "They have grossly undervalued the property while registering, causing loss to the state exchequer," he alleged.