The Bengaluru Police have detained three persons in connection with the 'PayCM posters' row that caused severe embarrassment to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and the ruling BJP.
A senior officer told DH that a team headed by the police inspector C B Shivaswamy detained three persons for interrogation on Thursday morning, however, no one has been arrested yet. Once the interrogation is complete and their role is established further due procedures will be followed.
The detained are identified as B R Naidu, attached to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) social media wing, Pavan and Gagan, party workers.
R Srinivas Gowda, deputy commissioner of police (Central) is personally supervising the interrogation at High Grounds police station.
The High Grounds, Sheshadripuram and Sadashivanagar police had registered four cases under the Karnataka Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1981. Two cases registered at JC Nagar and Sanjay Nagar police stations are being investigated by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths.
The PayCM posters had come up on the streets of Bengaluru, with CM Bommai's QR code. If the QR code is scanned, it would lead to a page which contained corruption charges against the ruling BJP.
Ruling BJP and Congress had begun a war of QR Code posters to trade corruption charges against each other. Opposition Congress came with the idea first by releasing 'PayCM' Posters, the ruling BJP later responded with QR code posters containing Opposition leader Siddaramaiah and state Congress President D K Shivakumar on Wednesday.
The PayCM poster released by the Opposition Congress unofficially had a portrait of the Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in the poster, and when scanned it leads to 40 per centsarkar.com website. The posters, which had come up at various locations, have severely embarrassed Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and ruling BJP.
The authorities pressed the services of BBMP personnel to take down the posters from walls and other establishments in Bengaluru. BJP MLC M Ravikumar stated that "Congress leaders have put up our CM's picture to carry out their campaigns, they should make their payments to Rahul Gandhi," he chided.
Answering a question about the 'PayCM' campaign, CM Bommai said that he had ordered an inquiry into the issue to find out who was behind the propaganda. "Anyone can do this with a motive. People will understand, they don't hold ground," he said.
"It's not about my image, they are trying to dent the image of the state and that is why action would be taken against them," he said.
(With agency inputs)