Bengaluru: It’s tit for tat in the diary versus diary wars! Not to be outdone by the BJP's former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's relentless attack on the Congress, through K. Govindaraju's diary that allegedly shows huge cash transfers by the Siddaramaiah government to the Congress high command, now it's the turn of the Congress to fire its salvo, with another diary!!
As 'mysterious' as Govindraju's diary, this one contains payments allegedly received and made to BJP central leaders. No-one has seen it as yet, with senior Congress leaders saying they were going to go public with it on Saturday.
While one page of the diary contained names of BJP ministers in initials that they claim is JS (for Jagadish Shettar), M Nirani (for Murugesh Nirani), RA and KSE (for R Ashok and K S Eshwarappa) and DVS ( for D.V. Sadananda Gowda), the names of recipients on another page, they claim include Namo (Narendra Modi), H.V. (Harsha Vardhan), MVD (Muralidhar Rao, RSS leader) BSY (B S Yeddyurappa),. The second page of the diary also allegedly contain the signature of BJP MLC Lehar Singh.
Senior Congress leaders said they were in possession of two pages of this BJP diary but also said that their motives would be called into question if they went public with it now. “We will be accused of 'political vendetta' by the BJP, especially after our diary is being talked about 24 hours after a private television channel ran the expose” on Govindaraju's diary on payments allegedly made to Congress bigwigs.
Vishwanath demands probe
Senior Congress leader Adaguru H. Vishwanath said on Friday that KPCC president Dr G. Parameshwar should lodge a complaint against party MLC K. Govindaraju and seek an inquiry to find out the truth behind the diary issue. Mr Vishwanath said here that all information in the diary should be made known to Congress workers.
He said, “Even the Supreme Court has stated that evidence recorded in the diaries is not valid. Then how will the BJP prove it? It seems it has been done to mislead the people. However, the diary issue needs a thorough investigation. Mr Govindaraju, who is Chief Minister’s political secretary, should clarify the issue.”
He said that it was common for any party to give donations to its high command towards the party fund.
