By IANS,
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday dismissed accusations made by Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) that the Karnataka government had shown favours to companies which donated money to trusts run by sons of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, saying there was no proof that the state government had shown any favour.
“The state government has not shown any favour after or before (the donation was given),” BJP leader S.S. Ahluwalia said here.
Ahluwalia denied that Yeddyurappa, who arrived in the capital Thursday, had been summoned by the party’s central leadership after accusations that he had shown undue favours to some private firms in return for donations.
“His visit was scheduled earlier,” he said.
He also ruled out Yeddyurappa stepping down in the wake of fresh controversy.
JD-S leader and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy alleged Wednesday that the trust run by Yeddyurappa’s sons received Rs.27.18 crore during 2008-09 and 2009-10 by way of corpus donation by “misusing the Chief Minister’s office and rendering official favours to those companies”.
He said Yeddyurappa’s son and Lok Sabha member B.Y. Raghavendra was managing trustee of the educational trust.
Kumaraswamy said B.Y. Vijayendra, another son of Yeddyurappa, was also one of the trustees.
He alleged that both the sons rendered “official favours” to the donors and collected huge donations to the trust as “illegal gratification for favours obtained”.