Mudslinging and acrimonious exchanges have become the order of the day in the action-ridden Janata Dal (Secular).
If on Monday, the eight rebels said they would take “political sanyas” if JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda could bring the party back to power without their support, on Tuesday, the tirade took on a “religious” tone, with party leader and former Minister H.D. Revanna challenging party rebels to take a “truth test” before Lord Manjunatha in Dharmasthala, or Goddess Chamundeshwari in Mysuru to prove the allegations they were making against him.
The eight rebels, suspended from the party for defying the party whip and voting for the Congress candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, had on Monday alleged that Mr. Revanna had taken bribe from candidates in the Legislative Council and Rajya Sabha elections.
Denying the allegations by JD(S) rebels, including N. Cheluvarayaswamy and H.C. Balakrishna, Mr. Revanna said, “I have not asked even a paisa from candidates.”
Interestingly, in 2011, Mr. Revanna’s younger brother and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had been challenged by State BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa (the then Chief Minister) to take a similar “truth test” before Lord Manjunatha, on the issue of corruption. This time around, Mr. Revanna not only challenged rebel legislators to the “truth test”, but also invited Congress candidate K.C. Ramamurthy, retired IPS officer, who won the RS polls by bagging the highest votes, to take the same test to prove that he had not bribed legislators to seek votes. He went on to claim that the JD(S) had supported businessman Rajiv Chandrasekar during the last RS polls, but he had not sought money from the MP. In an earlier round of RS polls, the party had supported liquor baron Vijay Mallya and businessman M.A.M. Ramaswamy and even then he had not taken money from candidates, Mr. Revanna said.
I challenge party rebels to take ‘truth test’ before Lord Manjunatha in Dharmasthala, or Goddess Chamundeshwari in Mysuru to prove the allegations against me.
H.D. Revanna,
JD(S) leader
