Bangalore Turf Club does a reverse flip

The Bangalore Turf Club managing committee did a swift reverse flip on Monday under pressure from government nominees to move a resolution to sign the agreement for lease of land at the disputed Chikkajala tank bed area and also to withdraw the case filed in the High Court against the government’s move to evict them from the existing premises at the expiry of the lease on December 31, 2009. The High Court had heard BTC counsel on Monday and had posted December 14 as the next day for hearing after issuing notices to the government departments.

A meeting of the Managing Committee was convened on Monday to discuss the problems arising out of the reported outbreak of equine disease in the army breeding establishments at Uttar Pradesh and the subsequent ban imposed on movement of horses and personnel to North India, especially UP. However, the elected members of the managing committee were taken by surprise when Principal Secretary to the Finance Department and the Police Commissioner who are ex-officio members on the committee arrived at the meeting and told the members that they had to take up the matter of signing the lease deed immediately and also withdraw the case from High Court.

Though the resolution was not listed on the agenda, the same was moved with Chairman Vivek Ubhaykar, Dr Srinivasa Gowda, Kiran Basappa and Kumaraswamy opposing the resolution while all the government nominees along with elected committee members Sydney Moses, Harindra Shetty, Ronald Pinto, Kenneth Pinto and Lokesh voting in favor.

The decision of the managing committee has raised a huge furore and BTC members are up in arms against the decision. The members are planning a suo moto emergency meeting of the General Body to vote out the committee members who acted against the interests of the club. It may be recalled that the BTC General Body had authorized the Managing Committee to approach courts for redress and that their contention is that any change in decision with regard to the legal suit had to go back to the general body. The resolution moved is termed illegal as the government nominees also voted when they were interested parties and that the Managing Committee had exceeded its brief.

While the majority of members have no dispute about building a new race course, all that they are demanding is that the land given should be free of any encumbrance and that the government should help financially and give enough time for the new infrastructure to come up. By signing the lease for land at Chikkajala, the members fear that they would be compromising the interests of the club because they will lose hold over their present venue as the government may go back on its verbal assurance after the lease formalities are completed. The government has not given anything in writing about extension of the lease and in fact, the Public Works Department has been repeatedly sending notices to the club to vacate on the scheduled date. The court option is to protect the interest of the sport and the club in the long run. Given the fluid political situation, if there is any change in the scenario, the new government is not duty bound to honor a verbal commitment.

Ever since Yeddyurappa came to power, he has been eyeing the race course land and has gone out of the way to assure the club that he would do anything for them provided they comply with his wish of signing the lease for new land and relocate as early as possible. The Chief Minister has stated that he would like to develop the race course land as a beautiful park with a 200 plus storey structure meant as a tourist attraction. The BTC land is estimated to cost over Rs 10, 000 crores at present market value and the land that is being offered in exchange is less than Rs 100 crores, with the onus on developing the infrastructure at a cost of over Rs 350 crores falling on BTC which at present is starved of funds.



The jinx of race course

The race course is located in the heart of the city at a place originally know as Malenahalli. The extent of land is little less than 80 acres. The turf club has been asked to relocate citing traffic congestion as early as 1930s by the then Municipality. . Later successive governments since the 60`s have made attempts to get the race course shifted.

Originally, the Jakkur Air Strip was identified as suitable for race course. Later the tank bend at Jakkur was finalized but before the formalities could take place, Bangalore received the highest rainfall in the history of the city in the late 80’s and the whole place got filled up with water and the plan to acquire this land was shelved.

Interestingly, right from the time B D Jatti was the Chief Minister, there have been attempts to shift the race course. Devraj Urs, Ramakrishna Hegde, S R Bommai, Veerendra Patil, S M Krishna were unsuccessful in shifting the race course as they did not complete their full term. The then governments had not only offered land but also indicated its willingness to help financially. Deve Gowda was the only Chief Minister who did not make any move to shift the race course.

Now Chief Minister Yeddyurappa has been unsparing in his efforts. The government has run into rough weather and if by chance, this government goes, the jinx of race course affecting the tenure of Chief Minister’s meddling with race course land will haunt anyone to even think of consider shifting the race course in future.