In a dramatic turn of events, activist Dinesh Kallahalli on Sunday sought to withdraw his complaint which resulted in the resignation of Ramesh Jarkiholi from the Karnataka cabinet in the ‘sex for job’ scandal. Dinesh has said he wants to withdraw the complaint as he is hurt by allegations of extortion made by former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy.
In his letter, Dinesh claimed that he wants to withdraw his complaint in light of allegations of him collecting bribes made by Kumaraswamy. He also added that the humiliation the woman faced is also a reason. This comes after he had claimed on Friday that there was a threat to his life and sought police protection following alleged threats by supporters of the former Minister.
It may be recalled that it was Dinesh who released the videos to the media, in which former Karnataka Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi is supposedly seen with an unidentified woman in a compromising position. Dinesh had even met with the Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant and demanded a detailed probe into the alleged sex scandal. In his complaint, he stated that Ramesh Jarkiholi allegedly sought sexual favours from the woman in return for a government job. Dinesh also shared a CD, which is reported to have clips of the woman and the Minister. Dinesh said the woman approached him after she was allegedly threatened by the Minister.
Speaking on this, Kumaraswamy on Friday had said that according to information he gathered it was a Rs 5 crore deal gone wrong. He had said, “A lot of black money has been floating around. The government should first arrest the blackmailers like him [Kallahalli] and get all the information and then probe the ministers.”
Dinesh had also recently made news for writing to Governor Vajubhai Vala and getting a sanction of prosecution over alleged disproportionate assets owned by Municipal Administration and Horticulture Minister, Narayana Gowda. Dinesh alleged that the Minister had not disclosed all of his assets in his election affidavit.
Like Ramesh Jarkiholi, Narayana Gowda is also one of 17 MLAs who left the Congress-JD(S) combine and defected to the BJP, a move that led to the collapse of the coalition government and paved the way for the BS Yediyurappa-led BJP government to come to power in 2019.