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The BJP’s Karnataka chief BS Yeddyurappa on Friday rubbished as “atrocious and malicious” the allegation that he had paid ₹1,800 crore as a bribe to the party’s top brass, after the Congress demanded a Lokpal probe into the issue. The Congress, meanwhile, renewed its chowkidar chor hai (watchman is a thief) tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The sharp exchanges began with Congress leaders Motilal Vora, Rajeev Shukla and Randeep Surjewala demanding a Lokpal inquiry into a report by The Caravan magazine, which quoted an alleged diary of Yeddyurappa that maintained accounts of bribes paid to top BJP leaders.
“All ‘chowkidars’ of the BJP are thieves. NaMo. Arun Jaitley. Rajnath Singh,” tweeted Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
BJP President Amit Shah fought back on Twitter, asserting that the Congress is relying on “forgery” in desperation. “The Congress campaign is in a shambles. Now, even forgery can’t save them. A few loose sheets given by a Congress minister is only as credible and reliable as Rahul Gandhi’s leadership skills,” he said.
The ruling party simultaneously fielded Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to take on the Congress. “Since morning, we were eagerly waiting for Rahul Gandhi’s press conference. If it was such a big expose, why did he personally not address the media? The Congress is desperate and it has lost its balance. It is now resorting to falsehood, misrepresentation and trying to spin a web of lies,” he said.
CBDT statement
In a statement, the CBDT said that during a search of Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar’s premises on August 2, 2017, some loose papers were given to the raiding party. “They were a xerox copy of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, Legislator’s Diary pages of 2009 [when Yeddyurappa was chief minister] with details of numerical entries against some individual names. The original... was never given.”
When it confronted him on October 19, 2017, the CBDT said Shivakumar stated that “this was a copy of diary, written by Mr. BS Yeddyurappa, and the payments paid on behalf of Mr BS Yeddyurappa to legislators, and received from various leaders, MLAs, Ministers when they were in power.”
The CBDT said that since the original was not available by DK Shivakumar, a And since the original diary has not been supplied, the forensic analysis of Yeddyurappa’s handwriting and signatures was is not possible, noting that the documents “were given by the person who was being raided for tax violations”.
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