Corruption In Karnataka: Unaccounted Cash Seized From BJP MLAs Home & Office In Bangalore, MLA Untraceable
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-03-03 11:53:19
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
The
Lokayukta police in Karnataka, alerted by a tip-off, arrested V Prashant Madal,
the son of BJP's Channagiri legislator K Madal Virupakshappa (who is also the
chairman of the Karnataka Soap & Detergents Ltd) on Thursday while
accepting a bribe of Rs 40L in his father's office on Crescent Road in
Bangalore. Prashant works as an accountant with the Bangalore Water Supply and
Sewerage Board. Later, the Lokayukta police raided his home and found
unaccounted cash of Rs 6cr. Another Rs 1.75cr was found at his office. Virupakshappa
is untraceable and has reportedly applied for pre-arrest bail.
This is an
embarrassing incident for the BJP which adopts a holier-than-thou attitude in
matters of corruption and claims to have a zero tolerance policy against the
menace, especially as assembly elections are due in Karnataka later this year. It
has been reported that the bribe was demanded (Rs 81L in total) for a tender. This
proves that the BJP has not been able to stamp out corruption in states where
it rules. The politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus continues to flourish in
all states, even in those ruled by the BJP, and people still have to pay bribes
to get contracts.
As recently
as in the campaign for the Meghalaya assembly elections, the BJP had said (despite
being an alliance partner in the outgoing government) that chief minister Conrad
Sangma ran the most corrupt government. But with the disclosure in Karnataka,
the BJP is not best placed to throw muck at others. The party had faced
corruption issues in the state earlier too when the Reddy brothers were accused
of corruption in the illegal mining scam in 2011. Yet the party had given a
ticket to Gali Somasekhara Reddy (who was also an accused in a cash-for-bail
charge) in the 2018 elections. Hopefully, this time the party will expel
Virupashkappa and let the law take its own course.
