BENGALURU, 30 APRIL 

Prajwal Revanna’s former car driver Karthik and BJP leader G Devaraje Gowda accused each other of leaking the alleged sleaze videos of the JD(S) Hassan MP which has caused a big embarrassment to the regional party.

In a video message on social media, the driver said he worked with Prajwal for the last 15 years but it has been a year since he has not been with him. “The reason (for distancing from Prajwal) was that my land was taken away and my wife was beaten up. I was mentally tortured. Because my land was taken away, I came out of the job and started my fight (to get back land),” Karthik said in the message.

He said he had approached G Devaraje Gowda for justice as he had been fighting against the Deve Gowda family. Devaraje Gowda had fought the 2023 Assembly election from Holenarasipura assembly constituency on the BJP ticket and lost to Revanna.

In the meantime, Prajwal had brought a stay order to prevent me from releasing any sleaze photos or videos, Karthik said. “Devaraje Gowda told me to hand over the photos and videos which he promised to hand over to the judge to help vacate the stay. Trusting him, I gave him a copy, which he used,” the driver claimed.

“Other than Devaraje Gowda, I did not give this video to Congress leaders or anyone else. I did not give the videos and photos to Congress leaders because they were close to Prajwal. Hence, I approached Devaraje Gowda, but he too cheated me,” Karthik alleged.

Since BJP and JD(S) have forged an alliance, Karthik said Devaraje Gowda had written to his party high command not to give the ticket to Prajwal pointing to his conduct.

Rejecting the charges, Devaraje Gowda said here that Karthik had been hanging around with the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Hassan constituency Shreyas Patel. Neither JD(S) nor BJP would release the videos as it would go against the NDA alliance's candidate, he said. “If there was someone benefiting from this, it was Congress. Only for his political gain, the Congress candidate (Shreyas Patel) has mortgaged the modesty of women seen in the videos,” Devaraje Gowda said.

He said he is waiting for the SIT to serve him a notice where he will release important documents. The BJP leader said the Congress leaders will fall into the ditch they had dug for others. —PTI