Following Congress MLA for Yellapur Shivram Hebbar dismissed the audio clip released by his party as “‘fake”, the issue has now muddled.
V.S. Ugrappa, Congress MLA, who released the audio tape two days ago, said while the person who BJP leaders B.J. Puttaswamy and B.S. Vijayendra spoke to was not Mr. Hebbar’s wife, it was “cent per cent certain” that the two members who tried to lure the person (assuming her to be the MLA’s wife) with a Cabinet berth and money to poach her husband were from the BJP.
Addressing presspersons, he said the BJP used a mediaperson to contact vulnerable MLAs. “In turn, the mediaperson used the opportunity to conduct a sting operation to expose the BJP. The mediaperson connected the BJP leaders to a number and told them it was the Congress MLA’s wife and they spoke to her,” he alleged. Denying the BJP’s allegations that the Congress had released fake audio tapes, he said: “They are genuine. It is only that the mediaperson, who is known to Mr. Hebbar, had not informed him about the sting. I demand a judicial probe by a Supreme Court judge and a forensic voice test of the BJP members,” he said.
The Congress had released three audio tapes in the run-up to the floor test, claiming that the BJP leaders were trying to poach the party MLAs by offering huge money and Cabinet berths so that the B.S. Yeddyurappa government was saved.
