Karnataka MUDA Case: ED Conducts Raids Amid Land Allotment Row Involving CM Siddaramaiah

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday conducted searches in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) matter in which it has booked Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his family members and others, official sources said.

The MUDA office in Mysuru and some other locations are being raided by the federal probe agency officials along with an escort of a central paramilitary force, the sources said. No premises of the CM or his family are being covered, they said. The federal agency few weeks back had filed a enforcement case information report (ECIR) to book the CM and others taking cognisance of a recent Lokayukta FIR, the sources said.

The CM is facing allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife by the MUDA. Siddaramaiah, his wife B M Parvathi, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy and Devaraju -- from whom Swamy had purchased a land and gifted it to Parvathi -- and others have been named in the FIR registered by the Mysuru-located Lokayukta police establishment on September 27.

The CM had denied any wrongdoing by him or his family, saying the opposition was "scared" of him and had noted that it is the first such "political case" against him.