Congress releases recycled ' chargesheet' against BJP

After a manifesto and a vision document, the Congress on Tuesday came up with a ' chargesheet' against the BJP. The party released a recycled ' chargesheet', listing a string of alleged scams which are already in public domain, and held the party responsible for Bengaluru's woes. Titled Gentlemen: What is your contribution to Bengaluru? A Mirror to the BJP's misrule, the chargesheet lists 49 scams reported since 2006. It includes the Rs 2,000-crore work codes (contracts) scam; Rs 161-crore garbage contract scam; Rs 2,400-crore JNnurm scam; Rs 2,400-crore overnight tender scam; Rs 2,000-crore advertisement scam; Rs 3,800-crore cable scam, among others. Besides, it also framed charges against BJP over garbage disposal, reckless borrowings, pending bills of contractors and other infrastructure inadequacies. "All former prime ministers, including AB Vajapyee, have applauded Bengaluru during their visits to the city. But the BJP has ensured Narendra Modi doesn't spend much time here fearing he'd be exposed," says one of the charges. Releasing the list, ministers KJ George, Ramalinga Reddy, R Ro shan Baig, Dinesh Gundu Rao and Krishna Byre Gowda alleged that there have been largescale irregu larities and corruption with BBMP during the last 10 years of BJP rule." We have prepared the chargesheet based on senior IAS officer Rajendra Kumar Kataria's report which ound prima facie evidence against hese charges. If voted to power, we'll ensure we will get these scams investigated," said Reddy. However, the Congress chose to omit a major scam involving one of its own MLAs. In 2014, Lokayukta had raided the house of BBMP contractor-turned-councillor-turned Congress MLA Munirathna Naidu. The premises was allegedly being used to create Rs 120 crore worth of fake bills involving civic works granted to nine wards in the MLA's Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency . " We have already handed over the case to the CID. Therefore, we didn't include it in the list," said chief minister Siddaramaiah. CONG HAS NO MORAL RIGHT TO LEVEL CHARGES: BJP BJP state president Prahalad Joshi said the Congress has no moral right to level allegations against the BJP when the ruling party has no interest in Bengaluru's development. " The Congress was in power in the state. It could have got all the scams probed and punished the guilty. Why is it making allegations now? Moreover, the fake bill scam involving Congress MLA Munirathna is the mother of all scams reported in BBMP. But the Congress failed to take the probe to its logical end just to protect him," he said. -TOI