MYSURU: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLC A H Vishwanath on Friday welcomed the Karnataka High Court’s decision to abolish the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and said that all three major political parties have been shaken by this decision.
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday abolished the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), formed by the Congress government headed by Siddaramaiah in 2016, and transferred all pending cases before the ACB to the Lokayukta police division.
Addressing a press conference, the BJP MLC said that Lokayukta was brought to eliminate political corruption, but it was demolished by the state government. “The leaders of all the three major political parties have been shaken by the decision of the High Court to abolish the ACB,” said Vishwanath.
He said that Opposition leader Siddaramaiah and leader of the JDS legislature party H D Kumaraswamy also did not give a good response. “A former CM went to jail because of the Lokayukta. A money counting machine was found in BJP leader K S Eshwarappa’s house. Due to all this, there was a clamour to close the Lokayukta. Siddaramaiah had acted in addition to that,” he said.
Vishwanath said that Lokayukta is needed to curb political corruption and the state government should empower the Lokayukta without any hesitation. “The Lokayukta should not be weakened for the protection of some leaders”, he said.
“Even JDS chief HD Deve Gowda has not welcomed the High Court verdict. Because his son Balakrishna’s case is also in Lokayukta. He analysed that corruption is the bread and butter of everyone’s house,” he added.
Earlier, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the state government will discuss the high court judgment abolishing the ACB in a cabinet meeting soon. “We have seen Karnataka HC’s judgment on abolishing the Anti-Corruption Bureau. We will discuss our next step in the Cabinet meeting, keeping our (2018 Assembly election) manifesto in mind,” Bommai said. (ANI)