No change in leadership, will complete full term: Yeddyurappa

PTI

Gulbarga, 16 November 2010: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today ruled out change in his leadership and asserted that he will complete his five-year term in office.

 

"There will be no change in my leadership. The opposition parties, which are conspiring against me, will not succeed in their plans to destabilise my government. I will continue as chief minister for the remaining two and a half years," Yeddyurappa said.

 

The government is thinking of providing financial assistance to ’stree shakti’ groups to take up self-employment ventures, he said, addressing a gathering of women to whom he distributed sarees here.

 

On the controversy over denotification of land, he said a committee headed by Chief Secretary S V Ranganah has been set up to study denotification ordered in the last 10 years. He would also hold a meeting with opposition party leaders soon to discuss the issue, he said.

 

Yeddyurappa said he plans to lead an all-party delegation to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the ongoing Parliament session to press for an amendment to Article 371 of the Constitution to provide for special economic powers for development of backward north Karnataka region.

 

Earlier JDS MLA, Aruna Patil and about 60 of her supporters, who staged a protest against the distribution of sarees, were taken into custody, police said.

 

 

 Krishna rubbishes Yeddyruappa’s claims on land deals

 

Bangalore, 16 November 2010 (IANS): External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna on late Monday denied he had denotified lands acquired by the Karnataka government to favour some people when he was chief minister of the sate during 1999-2004.

 

He was reacting to Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s statement earlier Monday that not only he but several of his predecessors had denotified (freed from government control) the lands.

 

In a statement here Krishna said that between October 1999 and June 2004, over 2,000 acres of state’s land was denotified to be utilised by various government departments.

 

The land so freed was for projects like the construction of outer ring road in Bangalore and for utilisation by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) and others, Krishna said.

 

Yeddyurappa had said during Krishna’s rule 633 acres of land was denotified. Yeddyurappa gave details of land denotified in the last ten years and also residential sites allotted by chief ministers under their discretionary quota to contend that he has not favoured his children in land deals.

 

Yeddyurppa chose to come out with the details following allegations that an auto component manufacturing firm, in which his two sons are directors, was favoured in allotment of prime industrial plot of two acres at Jigani industrial estate in the outskirts of Bangalore in 2007 when he was deputy chief minister.

 

The firm got the allotment within 15 days of applying for the land.

 

Yeddyurappa denied any wrong doing or violation of law in the allotment.