BENGALURU: The Jarkiholi brothers and their supporters have been busy doing their own detective work to get to the bottom of CD Gate that shows former water resources minister Ramesh Jarkiholi in a compromising position with a woman.
Arebhavi BJP MLA Balachandra Jarkiholi, who is Ramesh’s brother, on Sunday said, “I have information that around Rs 15 crore was paid to upload the sleazy, doctored videos from foreign destinations, like Russia and Singapore. There is a criminal conspiracy that was hatched against Ramesh.”
He refused to accept that the woman shown in the CD was a ‘job seeker’, and sought a thorough investigation into the episode by a professional agency like the CBI.
He claimed that Dinesh Kalhalli, the complainant in the case, did not have all the facts and could have been misguided. “There are unseen hands involved in this. There were four men behind this conspiracy,” he said but refused to name them.
“How do you explain the release of the CD just when the Assembly elections were declared for West Bengal, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam? Is it not evident that it is an attempt to tarnish the family and the party,” he asked. He said that all the videos have been doctored and are fake. “With technology, anything is possible now.
It has to be sent to an accredited laboratory to find out if it is genuine.” Asked if he suspected any individuals in Bengaluru or Belagavi, he said it has to be investigated. He urged Ramesh to come out and speak and to end his isolation. “How can the media portray her as a job-seeker? Kallahalli’s allegation that Ramesh was sexually exploiting the woman on the pretext of offering her a job at the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited is false,” he added.
On his Rs 100 crore defamation suit against the woman, he said he will consult his lawyers. After the scandal broke out, Jarikiholi tendered his resignation as water resources minister to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, which was forwarded to Governor Vajubhai Vala, who accepted it immediately. Apprehending a “political conspiracy” being hatched to defame them, six ministers of the Yediyurappa-led cabinet have secured court injunctions restraining the media from airing or publishing any defamatory content against them.