Bengaluru: Ahead of the Assembly polls, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra on Sunday dropped a bombshell alleging that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had met absconder Vijay Ishwaran of QI Group of Companies at the World Economic Forum meeting in China in 2013 and wondered if the gift received from Ishwaran was a premium Rs 70 lakh worth Hublot watch.
Embroiled in a controversy over the diamond-studded Hublot watch in March 2016, Siddaramaiah had handed it over to the Assembly Speaker, asking him to make it a state asset. The CM had also claimed that the watch was gifted to him by his NRI friend, Dr Girish Chandra Varma in July 2015.
Speaking at a press conference here, Mr Patra gave a different dimension to the controversy and said, "In September 2013, Mr Siddaramaiah went to attend the WEF meeting in China and there he met Vijay Ishwaran who is an absconder.
There was another absconder too and SFIO has called both a national threat," he charged flashing purported photographs showing Mr Siddaramaiah and Ishwaran along with three others, clicked at the WEF meeting in 2013.He claimed that a chargesheet was filed against Vijay Ishwaran in Chennai in 2009 and that in spite of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) declaring Iswaran an absconder, the CM met him. "Mr Siddaramaiah must come clean on this episode," he thundered.
