Bengaluru: The BJP on Tuesday came down hard on Chief Minister, H D Kumaraswamy for his silence on Minister, Puttaranga Shetty's personal assistant (PA) being caught in Vidhana Soudha with Rs 25 lakh in unaccounted for money, and warned that it would launch a statewide agitation if he did not drop him from the Cabinet.
Speaking to reporters here, opposition leader in the Legislative Council, Kota Srinivas Poojari said the PA's statement to the police that the money was meant for the Minister was enough reason to drop him.
" Although it had promised to provide good governance, the coalition government has been involved in large scale corruption since it assumed office," he charged.
Rubbishing the Congress's defence that the money was not found on the Minister himself, Mr Poojari asked with sarcasm "Should the police have waited till it was delivered to him?"
As for Minister D K Shivakumar's comment that Mr Shetty had not taken a bribe through cheque - a reference to the case involving state BJP chief, B S Yeddyurappa - the BJP leader retorted, "Mr Shivakumar has himself accepted that he is no Sathya Harischandra."
Recalling that Mr Shetty had courted controversy in the past too by reducing the 21 packages of the Ganga Kalyana scheme under the Devaraj Urs Development Corporation to 12 and accommodating his men in the contract process, the BJP leader noted that this was not only opposed by his own officers, but also the finance department, which had found the move against the rules. "But despite this the minister went ahead," he regretted.
