Bengaluru, Feb 25: Under attack from the Opposition over his luxurious watch, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddarmaiah today said he would declare it as a state asset and hand it over to the government.
"About the expensive watch I was wearing, which has been discussed almost everyday and reported in the media, I have this much to say that I will be declaring it as the state asset and deposit it with state secretariat," he told reporters here.
The controversy was fuelled by former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy who had claimed the diamond-studded Hublot watch was worth Rs 70 lakh and had been gifted to Siddaramaiah and that he had proof for his claims.
Siddaramaiah revealed that the expensive watch was gifted to him by his close friend (NRI) Gopal Pillai Girish Chandra Verma who visited India last July.
"The full name of the person who gifted this invaluable watch is Gopal Pillai Girish Chandra Verma. He had come to India in July last year. I know him since 1983 and whenever he visits India, he meets me," the Chief Minister said.
Siddaramaiah further clarified, "Verma gifted me the watch, even though I was not keen on accepting it. However, he insisted that I accept it and I accepted because of our long friendship but I did not know how expensive it was."
The CM said he would furnish relevant documents of the watch to the Lokayukta and Income Tax.
The Chief Minister's decision to declare the watch as a state asset comes in the backdrop of criticism from various quarters.
State BJP President and MP Prahalad Joshi had sought a probe by the Enforcement Directorate to find out the owner of the watch and whether customs duty had been paid for it.
A complaint had been filed by city-based activist S Bhaskaran with the state Lokayukta seeking Siddaramaiah's prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act for accepting the expensive gift and not declaring it before appropriate authorities.
Reacting to Siddaramaiah's announcement, Congress MLC V S Ugrappa, who had yesterday suggested three options including declaring the watch as a state asset, welcomed it.
Seeking to turn the tables, he asked Kumaraswamy to declare his "luxurious" assets, including cars and watches, as state asset.
Replying to a query, Ugrappa said the Chief Minister was busy with recent by-election, and Taluk and Zilla Panchayat polls and hence could not find time to come out with facts about the controversy earlier.
Kumaraswamy had argued that the Chief Minister should have come out openly the very next day the watch controversy came out in public.
Welcoming the move Dr Arathi Krishna told coastaldigst.com that Indians stranded in any foreign country can utilize this facility. "Initially, I was approached by Mr Zakaria and Mr Sheik who wanted chartered flights to help their employees fly back to India. I asked them to write to the Indian Ambassador in Saudi Araia Mr Ausaf Sayeed. Then I requested the ambassador to forward the request to Joint Secretary Dr Nagendra Prasad, who is in charge of gulf division in the Ministry of External Affairs, and then to Secretary on charge of Gulf and then I requested Secretary of Economic Relations Mr T S Tirumurti who was also in charge of Gulf to follow this up," she said. 
Comments
Once During Umer rah ruling he distributed clothes to every one, after couple of days he was found wearing new kurtha and pajaama. One person stood and asked ' from the cloths which you distributed we could stitch only kurtha and was not enough for pajaama' but how it was possible to you? Umer rah replied for this question my son will answer . His son said, I gave my cloths to father to complete the set. A good lesson for every rulers.
state assets means his property only fooling public, corrupt politicians must be killed infront of public so that people are scared of taking bride.
so many uncounted worth of crores gifts he got in the name of bribe, bribe can be called easily as a gift.. his friend is mad o what? he dont have family o what to gift him a 75lakh not even fools will gift this costly gift, siddaramaiah must be lieing.. govt should scan his every property. looted so many tax payers money i myself pay every year altogether around 6000 hard earned money to the fake govt, who cares.
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