JD(S) offering trip to Dubai, lakhs for information to sully my image: Sumalatha

Bengaluru: The poll scene in Mandya is growing murkier and more controversial by the day after Sumalatha Ambareesh, widow of the late actor/politician, M H Ambareesh, who is contesting as an independent, claimed that the JD(S) is offering huge sums of money and even a trip to Dubai or Singapore to anyone who could give information showing her family in poor light.

In a related development, the Mandya deputy commissioner Manjushree was transferred on Tuesday after Sumalatha and the BSP candidate alleged poll norm violations..

“The JD(S) wants to put out such information on social media to tarnish the image of family unable to digest my growing popularity in the constituency. I am not going to complain to the poll body, but will leave it to the people to decide. It is unfortunate that a party in power is stooping so low as to try and sully my family’s reputation," Sumalatha charged, speaking to reporters in Mandya.

Claiming to have been tipped off by a close friend of her late husband in the JD(S), she alleged that the party was trying to gather personal details about her, her son, Abhishek Gowda and her late husband. “They have also contacted two close associates of my late husband to extract information about our family and put it on social media. In exchange the men told me they were offered a free trip to Dubai or Singapore, Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh in cash and a site in Bengaluru," she said.

The idea was to flood social media with damaging information on her family by next week as the first phase of the Lok Sabha poll in Karnataka is slated for April 18, according to her. “Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy is worried seeing the support I am getting from workers of the Congress, JD(S), BJP and Raitha Sangha,” she contended.

But Mr Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of the Chief Minister, who is making his electoral debut from Mandya this poll, rubbished her claims , saying his was a farmers' party which did not have a strong social media team to indulge in such dirty tricks. “On the other hand, it is Ms Sumalatha's followers who are systematically attacking my family members through social media,” he said.