Sleazegate and corruption allegations: How Karnataka fared in 2024

In January, a shocker unfolded when Suchana Seth, CEO of a Bengaluru-based startup, was arrested for the murder of her four-year-old son following a bitter custody battle with her husband. She had allegedly stuffed the body in her luggage and was nabbed by the Goa police at Chitradurga, some 200 km from Bengaluru.

In March, Bengaluru hit the national headlines after an improvised explosive device blast at the Brookefield branch of Rameshwaram cafe, a popular chain of eateries in the city. The explosion, caused by a package left on its premises, injured 10 people. A month later, two people—Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Matheen Ahmed Taahaa—were arrested on April 12 by the National Investigation Agency in West Bengal in connection with the blast. The duo, along with Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Muzammil Shareef, were named in the chargesheet filed by the NIA.

Political bickering followed the incident, with Union minister Shobha Karandlaje coming under fire for her comments. She alleged the suspected bomber was trained in the Krishnagiri forests in Tamil Nadu and said the ruling DMK emboldened “radical elements” with its “appeasement politics”.

The sleazegate

The 2024 Lok Sabha polls saw the BJP align with the JD(S). Hours before the first phase of polling in Karnataka on April 26, pen drives containing videos of alleged sexual abuse by then Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna were distributed in his Lok Sabha constituency. The videos soon found their way into social media, prompting the JD(S) leader to flee to Germany soon after the polls concluded. The Government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the allegations against the third-generation politician from former prime minister H D Deve Gowda’s family. He was arrested on May 31 at Bengaluru International Airport.

In the interim, a bitter war of words erupted between Union minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar over the sleaze video episode. Preetham Gowda, former BJP MLA for Hassan, was also linked to the video leaks.

The SIT, which investigated the videos, has filed three chargesheets against Prajwal, charging him with rape, sexual assault and voyeurism. During the episode, his father and MLA H D Revanna was also charged with sexual assault. Revanna and his wife Bhavani Revanna were charged with abducting a victim of Prajwal to prevent her from approaching the police. In another blow for the family, Prajwal’s brother Suraj Revanna was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a man.

While Suraj is out on bail, multiple bail pleas by Prajwal have been rejected.

The scams

In the last week of May, Chandrashekaran P, a superintendent at the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribe Development Corporation, died by suicide, leaving a death note alleging irregularities at the state-run body and referred to “oral instructions of a minister”.

His detailed death note revealed misappropriation of funds to the tune of 94.73 crore from the corporation’s bank accounts, prompting the Government to form an SIT. The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate also filed cases. Under attack from Opposition parties, Scheduled Tribe Welfare and Youth and Sports Minister B Nagendra resigned and was arrested by the ED. He was later released on bail.

The differences between the Siddaramaiah government and Governor Gehlot were laid bare after the latter accorded sanction for prosecuting the chief minister based on three complaints, which alleged irregularities in the allotment of 14 housing sites in Mysuru to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi in 2021 (when the BJP was in power) in exchange for 3.16 acres of land acquired from her by the Mysore Urban Development Authority.

The prosecution sanction was upheld by the Karnataka High Court, and the Lokayukta police are investigating the case. The chief minister also appeared for questioning before the Lokayukta in Mysuru and has said the case is “politically motivated”. The sanction is under challenge in the high court, even as the controversy has dented Siddaramaiah’s clean image.

Another significant point of contention between Gehlot and the Government was related to Bills passed in the state legislature but kept pending by the governor’s office seeking several clarifications. The Government called the governor move unprecedented and accused him of abusing his authority.

A suicide case in the last week of December has also stoked a major slugfest. Sachin Panchal, a civil contractor from Bidar, killed himself and on the basis of his purported suicide note, Raju Kapanur—considered close to Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Priyank Kharge—and others were booked. This became the second major flashpoint between the ruling and Opposition parties in December.

During the winter session of the legislature, BJP MLC C T Ravi was accused of using a derogatory term against Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar of the Congress. Ravi was subsequently arrested but he alleged the police had conspired to kill him after his arrest. Mud-slinging between the two parties followed, even as Hebbalkar vowed to take the case to a logical conclusion.

The year also saw animosity between two warring factions of the BJP—under state president B Y Vijayendra and BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal—reach new heights. The party high command had to intervene at least twice to rein in the leaders, especially Yatnal, who embarrassed the BJP unit with his public outbursts against Vijayendra and his father and former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, who is also a BJP Parliamentary Board member.

The tragedies

In one of the biggest tragedies of 2024, nine people from Karnataka lost their lives owing to extreme weather conditions while trekking from Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand in the first week of June. Padmini Hegde, Venkatesh Prasad, Asha Sudhakar, Padmanabha Kundapur Krishnamurthy, Sindhu Vakekalam, Vinayak Mungurwadi, Sujatha Mungurwadi, Chitra Praneet and Anita Rangappa were the victims. Rescue operations succeeded in saving the lives of 13 others from the 22-member trekking team.

In July, a massive landslide—allegedly caused by the faulty construction of a national highway—killed nine people at Shirur in Uttara Kannada district. Following incessant showers, a portion of the hill along the highway connecting Panvel in Maharashtra to Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu crashed down, burying the stretch of the road under mud and rock. Traffic movement was affected for several days. In one of the longest search operations in recent memory, rescue teams traced the body of 32-year-old Arjun, a resident of Kerala, in September, two months later.

The crimes

Popular Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, his friend Pavithra Gowda and 15 others were arrested for allegedly killing a person named Renukaswamy, a resident of Chitradurga. The gruesome murder took place in Bengaluru after Renukaswamy allegedly sent abusive messages and photos to Gowda on Instagram. The incarceration of the cine idol, who was often at odds with media outlets, has been the subject of intense news TV coverage since his arrest in June. The police filed a chargesheet in the murder case and the accused were released on bail in December.

On September 21, the decomposed and dismembered body of Mahalakshmi, 29, chopped into 59 pieces, was found in a fridge at her home in Vyalikaval, sending shock waves through Bengaluru. Amid speculations about the identity of the killer and the cause of the murder, the police began tracing her boyfriend Mukti Ranjan Ray. However, before the police could reach him, Ray allegedly died by suicide in his native place in Odisha’s Bhadrak district on September 25.

The state also faced weather extremes, as regions reeling under intense drought conditions until May experienced flooding in several parts of the state, including Bengaluru.