Padma Mohanty
New Delhi: As the Lok Sabha election is coming nearer, the Congress is every day coming up with new allegations against BJP. Now it’s the turn of Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa. According to a report in the Magazine ‘The Carav’, which had published that BS YEDDYURAPPA had paid an amount near about Rs 1800 crore to BJP National Leaders, it’s the central committee, and judges and advocates.
The report said that Mr. Yeddyurappa had written these alleged pay-outs in a Karnataka state assembly legislator’s diary in 2009, in Kannada, in his own hand. According to the report: The entries of payments to the BJP leaders, judges and advocates were written against rows dated 17 January 2009, while the entry regarding the BJP central committee was written against rows dated 18 January 2009, to this the article added it was not definite to say that the entries were made on these dates or written in the diary on a later date. The report also says that the IT Department and the BJP government at the center are having the copies of Yeddyurappa’s diary entries since August 2017. Even a senior IT officer took a copy of the Diary to Jaitley, along with an unsigned cover note.
In a section marked ‘From Yeddyurappa to IT Department, via DK Shivakumar(Indian Politician from Karnataka, belongs to the Congress)’, the report said that the senior IT officer attached two documents, to confirm that the signature and the handwriting is of Yeddyurappa’s.” One of the document was a letter that Yeddyurappa had written in January 2017 to Sushil Chandra, who headed the CBDT(Central Board Of Direct Taxes) at that time, persuading him to take action against Shivkumar for his alleged irregularities and corruption and the other document consisted Yeddyurappa’s election affidavit filed ahead of the 2013 Karnataka assembly polls.
The senior IT officer asked whether further investigation by the Enforcement Directorate-India’s top law-enforcement agency for financial and economic crimes-was should be done or not. But Jaitley, who is named in the entries as having allegedly received Rs 150 crore from Yeddyurappa, chose not to act on the income-tax official’s note.”
Some loose papers of a Diary written by Yeddyurappa were seized in IT-raids. The Diary consisted of a list of 26 people under “money received/paid to Yeddyurappa” with payment amount ranging from Rs 5 crore to Rs 500 crore. Based on these loose papers the article titled ‘The Yeddy Diaries’ claimed that Mr. Yeddyurappa paid the BJP Central Committee Rs 1,000 crore, Union Ministers Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari Rs 150 crore each, Rs 100 crore to Rajnath Singh, Rs 50 crore each to party veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. In the Article, it was also written that BS Yeddyurappa paid Rs 10 crore for Gadkari’s son’s marriage.
Yeddyurappa immediately countered by saying “Congress leaders have already realised their defeat in 2019 election is eminent, they have lost the battle before it began. To be frank all the issues being raised by them about alleged payment of crores of rupees has already been enquired and found that the documents are fake.” He is in talks with some senior advocates to file a defamation case against the concerned person also.
The Congress yesterday again attacked PM Narendra Modi and other BJP Leaders, demanding an investigation after the article ‘The Yeddy Diaries’ was published. Commenting on Mr. Yeddyurappa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress had raised the matter in 2017 claiming it had an audio proof of conversation between BSY Yeddyurappa and late Union Minister Anand Kumar on this matter.
Dear diary, it seems my corruption has been caught, I tried to bribe several BJP leaders & now the country knows. I can only hope my Chowkidar protects me like all the other Chors.
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 22, 2019
Yours truly, @BSYBJP#YeddyurappaDiary pic.twitter.com/fxn9p3vajs
Congress Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala in a press conference said “this is a case of investigating all BJP leaders’ right from the PM and downwards. It is a fit case to be investigated by the newly appointed Lokpal.” He further added “The ball is in the PM’s court. He must decide whether Chowkidar chor hai ya chowkidar jaanch ke liye taiyaar hai.”
