BENGALURU: Where is Ramesh Jarkiholi? No one really knows, though it is suspected that he is holed up in a safe house in Bengaluru. Jarkiholi, who resigned as Water Resources minister, has not met any friend or visitor since Tuesday evening, ever since the sleaze videos were aired on vernacular television channels and went viral on cell phones. His phones are switched off. His official media WhatsApp group has been disbanded. And his PRO Shankar is not entertaining any curious media calls.
Though the assembly is in session, Jarkiholi has stayed away, as has his brother, Yamkanmaradi MLA Satish Jarkiholi from the Congress. Only Arabhavi MLA and older brother Balachandra Jarkiholi attended the session on Thursday.
Balachandra was sighted in the legislature lounge, having a private word with Ramesh’s bête noire, KPCC president DK Shivakumar. There was buzz on Tuesday that Shivakumar could be the person behind the sting, but by Thursday, sources were suggesting that the CD was actually “friendly fire” -- which means the suspicion now is that someone from the BJP carried it out. The meeting between Balachandra and Shivakumar only seemed to confirm that there were many angles to the incident, and both leaders kept it private, minus security guards and assistants.
Sources said the CD copies reached all news channel offices around 4.30 pm Tuesday, independent of Dinesh Kallahalli, the RTI activist who was preparing to meet the police commissioner at his office.
Secret team behind video?
A “secret team” planned the sleaze shoot in detail, and is now calling the shots, sources said. It is said that the team arranged for the seamless distribution of CDs on Tuesday evening, with the needle of suspicion pointing to a planned honeytrap, with the team tracking Jarkiholi and recording the CDs from multiple locations.
The other issue of some significance is that a meeting was scheduled at 10 am Tuesday between CM B S Yediyurappa, Jarkiholi and representatives from Koppal, Ballari, Vijayanagara and Raichur on issues challenging the capacity of Tungabhadra Dam and the setting up of a reservoir near Navali. That day, there was an intelligence tip-off about the CD, which made its way to news channels at 5pm, but it is suspected that the CM and the official administration chose to keep mum on the tip-off. And if the CM knew, he did not alert Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai or Jarkiholi.