Bengaluru: The Siddhartha Vihar Trust, associated with AICC President and Rajya Sabha member Mallikarjun Kharge and his family, has recently come under scrutiny for its questionable eligibility for government concessions related to civic amenities. This situation raises serious ethical and legal questions about the actions of the Kharge family and their purported commitment to social justice and equality.
It has been revealed through official documents obtained by media houses that the Siddhartha Vihar Trust is not eligible for the benefits outlined in a recent government circular, which was intended to provide concessions to certain civic trust entities. According to the legal officer of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the Trust’s acquisition of a civic facility site in the Banashankari 5th Block Layout, and a subsequent replacement site in BTM Layout, disqualifies it from availing the special concessions normally provided to trusts set up exclusively for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
This information comes on the heels of claims that the Siddhartha Vihar Trust has utilized the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe quota to secure plots within significant civic amenity areas, thereby raising eyebrows and fueling allegations of misconduct. The very idea that members of the Kharge family—long touted as champions of social justice—may have misused their political clout for personal gain is a chilling reminder of how power can corrupt even the most noble intentions.
Context and Allocation Issues
The roots of this controversy go back to April 7, 2010, when the BDA allotted a civic amenity plot to the Siddhartha Vihar Trust in Banashankari. This allotment was struck as a lease for a period of 30 years, with a substantive lease fee of Rs. 2,03,12,500. In a letter dated June 8, 2010, Radhakrishna, a current Congress MP and Trust trustee, had approached the BDA Commissioner seeking special concessions based on the claimed SC/ST management of the Trust.
However, the legal concerns began to surface when the legal officer confirmed that the Trust was formed for broader societal welfare, which explicitly goes against the parameters laid out for eligibility under the concessions prescribed for SC/ST entities. The Trust had claimed to serve SC/ST interests, but internal BDA opinions highlighted that the organization’s mandate is not limited to oppressed communities, thus disqualifying it from receiving the concessions intended for such specific purposes.
This discrepancy is indicative of a troubling pattern. It raises a significant question about the integrity of the Kharge family and their commitment to the very communities they purport to represent. If they have indeed designed their charitable endeavors to leverage political gains and secure additional resources, it undermines the entire framework of social equity that the Congress party claims to stand for.
Legal Opinions and Allegations of Misconduct
Moreover, further scrutiny revealed that a formal complaint had been lodged concerning the allocation of a civic amenity site to the Siddhartha Vihar Trust in the BTM Layout in 2022. The complaint, filed by a concerned citizen named A.G. Krishna Reddy, called into question the legality of the Trust’s acquisition, asserting that the site was reserved for group housing purposes, which itself was a deviation from the original civic amenity intention.
Reddy’s complaint categorically states that the liberties taken by the Siddhartha Vihar Trust constituted a gross violation of public trust and that there were no legal provisions allowing for the reallocation of the site for purposes outside its original mandate. If proven true, these actions not only contravene legal statutes but fundamentally betray the public’s trust in governance and oversight.
In attempting to rationalise the actions of the Trust, current trustee Priyank Kharge leaned on dubious justifications, suggesting that the Trust’s return of the CA site to the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) was a fair trade-off, presumably aimed at cleaning up the mess created by conflicting civic interests. However, such optics do little to alleviate the mounting concerns regarding the ethical foundation upon which the Kharge family operates.
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