Bengaluru, 27 Sept

Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said the party is standing with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and will support him as he faces a probe by Lokayukta police in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case.

Rejecting BJP's demand for Siddaramaiah's resignation, he noted that "neither a chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted," and said, "let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine."

"When the Godhra incident happened, whether (Narendra) Modi ji had resigned (as the then Gujarat chief minister)? Several cases were also pending against him at that time, even against Union Home Minister Amit Shah," Kharge said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said: "Don't target a particular person to damage his image, through him the party will also be damaged. Your (BJP) interest is to damage Congress, not the individual. He may be here today or may not be, the party will continue. Just to destroy Congress and Congress party's base votes, they want to destroy, that is why they are doing this."

Let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine it at that time, he further said. "Now nothing is there, (but) every day I'm seeing that MUDA, MUDA. Crores of rupees (have been) swallowed by industrialists, Rs 16 lakh crore of their debt have been written off, and now you are taking one small issue and fighting."

A Special Court here on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing of an FIR against him.

The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife B  Parvathi by MUDA.

In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA. PTI