Standing firm on the recent graft allegations against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Bharatiya Janata Party State unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa has said that a couple of Lok Sabha members from his party would shortly write to the Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) seeking a thorough probe into the details noted down in Congress MLC K. Govindaraj’s diary that was seized by Income Tax sleuths in March last year. He was speaking to mediapersons here on Wednesday.
“An individual from Bengaluru has already written to the CBI seeking a probe into details contained in Mr. Govindaraj’s diary. If any Member of Parliament seeks an inquiry, the CBI has to respond as per its manual. A couple of BJP MPs would soon write to the investigating agency,” Mr. Yeddyurappa said.
Asserting his graft charges against Mr. Siddaramaiah, the former Chief Minister reiterated that the Chief Minister had paid ₹ 1,000 crore to the Congress high command through Mr. Govindaraj. “A sum of ₹ 65 crore was paid to the family members of Mr. Siddaramaiah in connection with the proposed steel bridge in Bengaluru. Mr. Govindaraj served as a postman to dispatch the bribe amount to the central Congress leaders and to Mr. Siddaramaiah’s family members,” he said.
Challenging the Chief Minister on the authenticity of the charge, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that he would retire from active politics if his allegations were proved false. “Mr. Govindaraj has himself written to the CBI seeking information about who disclosed the details of his diary to Mr. Yeddyurappa. He neither disputed the IT raid on his premises nor did he disagree with my allegations on the content of his seized diary. It clearly shows that my allegations hold water. If the Chief Minister proves me wrong, I will retire from politics,” he said.
Ridiculing Congress’ “Satyameva Jayate” rally, Mr. Yeddyurappa asked Congress leaders to tell people the truth before launching the “truth” rally on Thursday.
