The former driver of the Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)) leader HD Revanna’s family has claimed that he handed over the explicit videos only to Hassan district BJP leader Devaraje Gowda and no one else. In a video that surfaced on Tuesday, April 30, Karthik, who claimed to be the family’s driver for 15 years, said he had given the videos only to Devaraje Gowda. In a media interview, Devaraje had alleged that at the time of handing over the videos to him Karthik had told him that he had already handed them over to some Congress leaders.
Revanna’s son and Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and nephew of JD(S) chief HD Kumaraswamy, has been accused of sexually exploiting multiple women. The acts have been filmed and these videos, supposedly numbering in the thousands, have been circulated on social media. Prajwal, who fled to Germany on April 27, was suspended from the party on Tuesday.
Karthik said, “I did not give the videos to anyone except Devaraje. Why should I give it to Congress? They (Congress) have a good relationship with that family and the police would have filed a B report on my case. I went only to Devaraje because I did not trust the Congress, but he too cheated me.” He does not explain how he came into possession of the videos.
Karthik’s statement is the latest over the role of all three main political parties in the state, with the Congress and BJP involved in a blame game over who knew about the existence of these videos. The BJP has faced embarrassment over not taking action despite knowing about the existence of the videos several months ago and still going ahead with Prajwal as their candidate for Hassan. Union Minister Amit Shah, while condemning the circulation of the videos, accused the Congress-led state government of not taking action against Prajwal.
Read: BJP warned about Prajwal Revanna videos months ago, still gave him Hassan ticket
Karthik, who said he would depose before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Tuesday and hand over all documents and material he had to them, said that he approached Devaraje Gowda last year when he heard he was a BJP leader who had contested against Revanna in Holenarasipura and was also fighting a battle against the Revanna family.
Karthik said he had worked for Revanna’s family for 15 years and quit a year ago after his land was snatched by Revanna’s family. “They took away my land, beat my wife, mentally tortured and harassed us. I quit the job and was preparing to fight them legally, then I heard about Devaraje, who was a BJP leader in Holenarsipura and came to know that he was also fighting them. I went to him because I thought I wouldn’t get justice elsewhere and confessed all my troubles to him.”
Karthik said that the BJP leader had told him that he needed the videos to submit them before the court. “I trusted him and gave him a copy. I don’t know what he did with it. But he did not submit it to court, and I heard he threatened to expose the family in front of the media. When I asked him why he had done that, he told me to stay out of it,” Karthik said while adding that he also got a copy of the letter Devaraje wrote to BJP leaders informing them about the videos and asking them not to choose Prajwal as an LS candidate.
Saying that he had heard Devaraje accuse him of spreading all the videos, Karthik said, “Prajwal brought a stay order against me preventing me from releasing the videos. Then Devaraje asked me if I had any videos and I handed over a copy to him. Now, he is accusing me of spreading the videos. He wants to save himself, so he is blaming me saying I gave the videos to Congress leaders, but I gave them only to him.”
“I have seen all that has gone on in that house for 15 years. I know who came and what has happened, both good and bad. I want other people also to come forward to tell what has happened to them,” he said.