New Delhi, 24 June (H.S.):

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday targeted Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, alleging that he was involved in the acquisition of 19 acres of government land in Karnataka through a family-linked trust.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari claimed that Kharge and his son, Priyank Kharge, were engaged in land-related irregularities and corruption through the Siddhartha Vihar Trust. According to Bhandari, the trust includes Kharge, Priyank Kharge, Kharge’s son-in-law, and his wife as members, making it a family-controlled entity.

Bhandari alleged that the allotment of 19 acres of land in Karnataka’s Gulbarga district was controversial. He said the Congress government in the state had transferred 19 acres of public land to the private trust, effectively placing government-owned property under the control of an organisation managed by members of the Kharge family.

He further alleged that Kharge and Priyank Kharge used the trust to acquire land at multiple locations and employed their political influence to take control of land that should have remained available for public purposes.

The BJP spokesperson asserted that this was not the first such case involving the trust. He claimed that in 2024, the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board allotted five acres of industrial land to the Siddhartha Vihar Trust when the Congress government was in power in Karnataka. At the time, Mallikarjun Kharge was serving as Congress president, while Priyank Kharge held a ministerial position in the state government.

According to Bhandari, the land was allotted for research and development activities in the aerospace and defence sectors. However, he alleged that no meaningful work related to the stated objective had been undertaken. He further claimed that the market value of the five-acre parcel was approximately Rs 100 crore.

Questioning the rationale behind the allotment, Bhandari asked why the Karnataka government had granted industrial land worth around Rs 100 crore to a trust in which Mallikarjun Kharge himself was a trustee.

He also sought clarification on whether Kharge and Priyank Kharge had used their official positions and influence to obtain the industrial land. Bhandari questioned what specific achievements or contributions by the trust had justified the allocation of land intended for aerospace and defence research to a private organisation linked to the Kharge family.

The Congress party had not issued an official response to the allegations at the time of reporting.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar