Bengaluru, Dec 15: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is learnt to have pulled up H Y Meti, who quit as Excise minister, after his sexually explicit video became public on Wednesday.
Soon after TV news channels started airing the video, 71-year-old Meti rushed to the chief minister's official residence “Cauvery” and offered to resign as minister.
He also tried to defend himself saying that it was a conspiracy and he had not done anything wrong, sources in the government said.
An angry Siddaramaiah, the sources said, asked him to shut up. “You have betrayed me. Was it necessary for you at this age?...You should be ashamed of yourself...We used to blame the BJP leaders on such unseemly activities. Now, we have lost the moral right to speak,” the sources quoted the chief minister having told Meti.
Different versions
There are different versions doing the rounds on where Meti's purported sexual escapade took place. According to one version it took place at Meti's residence in his hometown Bagalkot. The other version is that it happened in his ante-chambers in the Vidhana Soudha here.
The woman in the CD made a U-turn on Tuesday stating that it was indeed she in the video. On?Sunday, she had said that she had nothing to do with the video. She has also sought police protection stating that she is getting threat calls.
Meti, a fourth-time MLA from Bagalkot, is one of the close followers of Siddaramaiah. Like Siddaramaiah, Meti too belongs to the Kuruba community. He had served as Forest minister in the H?D?Deve Gowda government between 1994 and 1996 before he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bagalkot constituency in 1996. Siddaramaiah inducted him into his Cabinet in June this year.
An embarassment
The Meti episode has come as an embarrassment to the government as it comes close on the heels of Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait being caught watching obscene photos on his mobile phone during government-organised Tipu Jayanti in Raichur.
Several ministers in the Siddaramaiah's Cabinet had come to Meti's support stating he should be given the “benefit of doubt” because of his age.
No parallel'
Siddaramaiah, however, said a parallel cannot be drawn between the two incidents. He said Sait was cleared of all charges by the CID. The chief minister also denied that he had prior knowledge of the Meti CD. “I would have taken action immediately, if I had known,” he said.
On RTI activist Rajashekar Mulali telling journalists in New?Delhi on Wednesday that he would release CDs of two more ministers involved in sex scandals, Siddaramaiah said, “Let him release...we will see”.
Third minister to resign
H?Y?Meti is the third minister in the council of ministers headed by Siddaramaiah to resign owing to controversies.
Santosh Lad, who is currently the Labour minister, was the first to resign. He was forced to quit in November 2013 following charges of his reported involvement in illegal mining. However, Siddaramaiah re-inducted him into the ministry in a reshuffle in June this year.
K J George was forced to resign as the Bengaluru Development Minister in July this year in connection with the suicide case of police officer M K Ganapathi. In an interview given to a TV news channel before committing suicide, Ganapathi had reportedly held George responsible for his death. George was re-inducted into the Cabinet within a few months, after the CID gave him a clean chit in the case.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
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He has a horse power at this age
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