Praful washes hands of spat

Praful washes hands of spat
Murthy Finds Support In Congress Minister Deshpande
The Times of India

Bangalore/Mysore: The resignation of Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy as BIAL chairman is an internal matter between BIAL and the local political setup, Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Friday.

“Murthy’s resignation is unfortunate. The government of India can only say the project will be monitored from our level and the airport will come up according to standards,’’ he told The Times of India.

However, cooperation minister R V Deshpande came to Murthy’s rescue: “India has become a global brand because of IT/BT. Even Bangalore began to glow on the international map only after IT/BT sectors started growing in the last few years.’’

Infosys has not only made Karnataka proud, but even India. About 30-35 heads of various countries have come to India and some of them visited Bangalore first before going to New Delhi.

Regarding allegations about land being allotted indiscriminately to IT companies, Deshpande said: “I do not think anything of that sort has happened. As a far as I know, no indiscriminate allotment of land has been made to any IT company including Infosys. I do not know why this controversy is being raked up now.’’ Why should I react: Siddu: Former deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah declined to involve himself in the issue.

“Why should I react to the resignation of Murthy and Gowda’s comments? It is an issue between Murthy, the state government and Gowda,’’ he maintained, adding that the chief minister should say more on this.

However, he criticised the statements of Gowda, deputy chief minister M P Prakash and finance minister P G R Sindhia against IT and BT sector and said they were being inconsistent in their stand on these two sectors.