Who leaked sleaze videos? Fight on

'Before releasing the videos, the ‘mahanayaka’ (Shivakumar) could have at least blurred the faces of women in the video. The families of those women have been humiliated. This act of the 'mahanayaka' shows how he respects women, Kumaraswamy lashed out at DK Shivakumar.

Bengaluru/Hubballi: In the midst of a probe into Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna's alleged sexual abuse of women, a political 'whodunnit' has broken out over the sleaze clips, with the BJP-JD(S) alliance and the ruling Congress blaming each other.

It emerged on Tuesday that Prajwal's former chauffer Karthik Gowda was the first to get hold of the sex videos. The rest of the story is filled with twists and turns. 

On Tuesday, JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy named Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar as the one who leaked the sex videos. Shivakumar denied this.

Kumaraswamy charged that Shivakumar orchestrated the release of the sex videos five days before Hassan went to polls on April 26. The former JD(S) chief minister said the videos started circulating on April 21. 

"Before releasing the videos, the ‘mahanayaka’ (Shivakumar) could have at least blurred the faces of women in the video. The families of those women have been humiliated. This act of the 'mahanayaka' shows how he respects women," he said.

Kumaraswamy also demanded Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to dismiss Shivakumar on "moral grounds" for leaking the videos without blurring the faces of women. "If the CM has respect for women, he should dismiss Shivakumar and order an inquiry," he said, adding that the special investigation team (SIT) constituted on the matter should also look into how the videos came out. 

Hitting back at Kumaraswamy, Shivakumar said he does not use sleaze videos to do his politics. "I fight my fights directly. I don't indulge in blackmailing using pen drives and CDs like Kumaraswamy. It's not in my blood," he said. "Revanna (Prajwal's father) himself has admitted that the video clips are old," he added. 

Shivakumar's brother D K Suresh, the Bangalore Rural MP, also denied complicity. "If we had access to the videos, the issue would have become public much earlier," he said. "There were murmurs about this in Hassan. But we didn't talk about it due to lack of evidence," he said. 

Kumaraswamy was reiterating a claim made by BJP leader G Devaraje Gowda, who was the first to blow the whistle on Prajwal's waywardness in a December 2023 letter addressed to B Y Vijayendra, the saffron party's president. 

Devaraje Gowda has claimed that Shivakumar and Suresh had the sex videos even before Karthik gave them to him. 

But in a video statement Tuesday, Karthik denied this and said he handed over the pen drive containing the videos only to Devaraje Gowda and not any Congress leader. Karthik said he drove the Revanna family around for 15 years before parting ways due to a rift. "I went to Devaraje Gowda with the pen drive. I didn't go to any Congress leader," Karthik said. 

Contesting this, Devaraje Gowda said: "Why would I leak the videos? I could have done that last year when I contested the Assembly election against HD Revanna."

And, with Congress accusing BJP of having prior knowledge about Prajwal's activities, Vijayendra denied having received any letter by Devaraje Gowda. "Devaraje Gowda's claim of sending me a letter on the videos is patently false," he said. 

"D K Shivakumar has admitted to knowing about the videos for months, but waited to get closer to the elections to make them public. If he had known about the videos, why didn’t the Congress government order investigations immediately? Why wait till the elections?" Vijayendra asked.