BJP offering Rs 100 cr each to Cong MLA to topple govt: MLA Ravi

NT Correspondent

Mandya

Days after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah claimed that the BJP was offering Rs 50 crore to Congress lawmakers to defect, in a bid to topple his government, a ruling party MLA on Monday alleged that it has been raised to Rs 100 crore by the opposition party. Claiming that Kittur MLA Babasaheb D Patil and Chikkamagaluru MLA H D Thammaiah are among those contacted by the saffron party, Congress MLA from Mandya Ravikumar Gowda (Ravi Ganiga) said, he has "documents and evidence" to prove that the BJP was attempting to lure the ruling party legislators. However, both Patil and Thammaiah have clarified that they were not contacted or offered money or anything by the BJP or anyone.

The BJP has challenged the Congress and its MLA to release documents and "ensure" a probe. "...BJP should give up the attempts to dislodge the government, buying MLAs. None of our MLAs will fall for 'Operation Kamala.' We have documents and evidence to prove their attempts, we will release it before the media at an appropriate time soon," Ravi told reporters. "As al legations after allegations against BJP are coming out, its leaders are worried about going to jail, so they somehow want to form the government. They want to dislodge this government from the money they had made during the previous government, also there are funds from the Centre. JD(S) too has joined them," he alleged. Alleging that BJP plans to lure about 50 MLAs and thereby wants to bring down the government, the Congress MLA said, none of them will switch sides, as they all were staunch Congressmen.

"Offer was made to 50 legislators, also they had said 30 will be made ministers... they say they don't want anything other than their party government... all kinds of offers were made....As MLAs are not falling for Rs 50 crore, they have now come to Rs 100 crore (offer), they are not worried about Rs 50 or 100 crore, they somehow want to form the government," he said.