Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and nephew of former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, was suspended with immediate effect from Janata Dal (Secular) on Tuesday in connection with explicit videos allegedly involving him.
BJP leader G Devaraje Gowda and Karthik, the former car driver of Revanna, have accused each other of leaking the alleged sleaze videos of the JD(S) Hassan MP.
Karthik, in a video message on social media, said he worked with Revanna for about 15 years but since almost an year, he has not been with him. "The reason (for distancing from Prajwal) was that my land was taken away and my wife was beaten up. I was mentally tortured. Because my land was taken away, I came out of the job and started my fight (to get back land)," a PTI report quoted him as saying.
The driver further stated that he had reached out to G Devaraje Gowda for justice, who in turn cheated him. Devaraje Gowda contested the assembly election in 2023 from Holenarasipura constituency on the BJP ticket and lost to Revanna.
Karthik added that Revanna had brought a stay order to prevent him from releasing any sleaze photos or videos. He stated that he gave a copy of the photos and videos to Devaraje Gowda as the latter promised him to hand it over to the judge to help vacate the stay. The driver further said that he did not give the video to Congress leaders or anyone else as they were quite close to Prajwal.
Prajwal, 33, represented the BJP-JD(S) alliance in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. The entire controversy started just a day after the constituency went to vote in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 26.
Devaraje Gowda, meanwhile rejected the charges, and instead blamed Karthik saying he had been hanging around with the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Hassan constituency Shreyas Patel. He said that neither the JD(S) nor the BJP would release the videos as it would go against the NDA alliance's candidate, PTI reported.
"If there was someone benefiting from this, it was Congress. Only for his political gain, the Congress candidate (Shreyas Patel) has mortgaged the modesty of women seen in the videos," the report quoted Devaraje Gowda as saying.
Revanna had fled to Germany as the obscene video case surfaced.
Meanwhile, Union home minister Amit Shah blamed the Congress party for their inaction against Revanna. Addressing a poll rally in Guwahati, Shah said, "BJP's stand is clear that we stand with the 'Matr Shakti' of the country. I want to ask Congress, whose government is there? The government is of Congress party. Why they have not taken any action till now?"
The Karnataka government has constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) of IPS officers led by Additional Director General of Police B K Singh to probe the alleged sexual harassment of many women by Prajwal.
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