Taking serious exception to the Criminal Investigation Department issuing notice to Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) spokesperson Priyank Kharge, asking him to submit evidence regarding the PSI recruitment exam scam, KPCC vice-president Sharan Prakash Patil asked the CID to first arrest BJP leader Divya Hagaragi, one of the prime accused in the case, instead of issuing notices to whistleblowers.
“Mr. Priyank Kharge released an audio clip of a purported conversation between a candidate and the middleman that sheds light on the possibility of the involvement of higher-ups in the Government in the scam. The audio was already in the public domain. A Kannada daily had carried a news report on the audio clip before Mr. Priyank Kharge released it. It is surprising that the evidence, which is in the public domain, is not with the investigating agency. If it doesn’t have, it could have requested Mr. Priyank Kharge to provide it instead of giving notice asking him to personally appear and submit it. CID is not arresting Ms. Hagaragi, a prime accused in the case. It is instead threatening the person who is questioning the way that the CID is investigating the case,” Mr. Patil said at a press conference in Kalaburagi on Tuesday.
Terming the CID notice as a threat, Mr. Patil said that the State Government was taking revenge against Mr. Priyank Kharge as the latter had successfully exposed the Government in the Bitcoin scandal with substantial evidence.
“Mr. Priyank Kharge had gone on to expose the Basavaraj Bommai Government in the Bitcoin scandal with substantial evidence. The Government is now settling a score with him by threatening him with a CID notice. It is also an attempt to send a message that those who raise questions against its wrongdoings would be implicated in the false cases. The Congress is not afraid of such threats,” Mr. Patil said.
Mr. Patil also alleged that the Chief Minister was indirectly telling the CID to go soft against the accused that had connection with his party and go hard on those who were associated with the Opposition.
“When the gunman of Afzalpur MLA M.Y. Patil was arrested, Mr. Bommai talked in such a way that the Congress MLA had known about the crime that his gunman had committed. When the recommendation of Umesh Jadhav, a BJP leader, for allotting the PSI recruitment exam centre to Gyan Jyoti English Medium School, the institution run by Ms. Hagaragi, where the exam malpractices are reported from, surfaced, he took it casually. His double-standard statements are an indirect direction to CID to go soft against BJP-accused and hard against Opposition-accused,” Mr. Patil said.
“When Ms. Hagaragi emerged as a prime accused” Mr. Patil added, “the BJP leaders said that she was not their party leader. When Mahantesh Patil of Congress was arrested, we didn’t say that he was not our party member. Instead, we had demanded stringent action against all those who were involved in the crime, however strong they might be and irrespective of their party affiliations”.
