Siddaramaiah under fire after sting

Bengaluru

A demand was also made that the Election Commission take appropriate action over the alleged money deal. As the videos of the sting operations aired by two private TV news channels on Thursday allegedly showed the ruling Congress’ attempt to win over MLAs including from the JD(S) to add up to its numbers, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah put up a brave face, saying, “Congress has never done such things, they will never do it also.”

The BJP and JD(S) charged that the CM was behind the attempts to woo MLAs. The footage of ‘sting operation’ by one channel showed a JD(S) MLA purportedly talking about money in crores of rupees for supporting a candidate while the one by another channel showed Congress candidate K C Ramamurthy and independent MLAs purportedly speaking about getting enhanced development funds for the constituency by the government in return for votes.

Reacting to the sting operations, BJP state president and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa called Siddaramaiah an ‘architect’ behind these activities. He said “Chief Minister himself is behind it. They are saying Rs 100 crore package will be given to those supporting Congress.”

Yeddyurappa demanded that the EC take appropriate action on this issue. -Hitting back, Siddaramaiah reminded that Yeddyurappa was the brain behind ‘Operation Kamala’ that was used to weaken opposition parties when BJP was in power.

‘Operation Kamala’ saw BJP winning over several Opposition MLAs who resigned from their party, joined BJP and won elections on its ticket that helped it secure comfortable majority in the Assembly.