Case against Karnataka BJP MLA, son, his links, and the timing: More to it than meets the eye?

But the most curious perhaps is the MLA’s links to the state’s power centres.

Virupakshappa is considered a close aide of former chief minister and Lingayat heavyweight B S Yediyurappa, and belongs to the same sub-caste as sitting CM Basavaraj Bommai.

Virupakshappa was appointed KSDL chairman in July 2020, when Yediyurappa was the CM. Son Prashant was the financial advisor and CFO with the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board. The Lokayukta claims to have caught Prashant redhanded accepting a bribe of Rs 40 lakh, and seized Rs 8.12 crore in unaccounted cash from the father-son duo. While Prashant is in custody, Virupakshappa managed to evade arrest in the nick of time and is now “absconding”.

Not only is Virupakshappa, the MLA from Channagiri in central Karnataka, close to Yediyurappa, he has never hidden the proximity. When Yediyurappa was forced to step down as CM in 2021 by the BJP, Virupakshappa’s driver was captured shedding tears in front of television cameras.

When the transfer of power happened to Bommai, Virupakshappa, belonging to the same Lingayat sub-caste as the new CM, kept his KSDL chairmanship.

So will his high-profile, high-visibility fall from grace cost the BJP at a time when the Congress is running an aggressive campaign on corruption against it, dubbing it a 40% commission regime and putting up posters of Bommai with tag ‘PayCM’, with not much to substantiate the charges? Or is it a move by the BJP, which is never late in spotting shifting winds, to course correct on damaging corruption allegations?

There is another question roiling Karnataka power circles. Does the Lokayukta action mean renewal of investigation of past incidents of alleged corruption involving Congress leaders such as former CM Siddaramaiah and state party chief D K Shivakumar? After all, the BJP has often accused the Congress of blocking corruption probes by withdrawing police powers of the Lokayukta in 2015.

Of the three questions, the answer to one is perhaps the clearest. The move to arrest Virupakshappa is part of continued efforts by the BJP central leadership to take control of the pre-poll narrative in Karnataka, especially around the issue of corruption.

Soon after the arrest of Virupakshappa’s son, Bommai suggested there would be more such action, across the board, including into Excise and Labour Department scams. “The BJP government re-established the Lokayukta to check corruption. In the absence of an anti-corruption unit, so many incidents took place during the Congress regime and were hushed up. Those who commit mistakes will be punished,” he said, adding: “The Congress cannot claim to be a clean party. Cases have been registered against Congress ministers in the past. Now everything is being probed by the Lokayukta.”

Bommai himself is facing allegations of association of his family members in granting favours to businesses and private individuals. The Congress recently claimed illegal purchase of molasses by a private firm after alleged clearances from the CMO.

On February 23, addressing a rally in Ballari, Shah said: “Please trust Modiji once more, please trust Yediyurappa once more. We will provide governance that will liberate Karnataka from corruption in five years and make it the No. 1 state in South India.”

BJP sources said Shah was left seething following a recent public meeting where the issue of corruption was raised. Top state leaders reportedly came in for a dressing-down at a private meeting later.

During the recent Karnataka Assembly session, Bommai had brought up alleged corruption during the Congress tenure under Siddaramaiah, over the handling of state-acquired land.

A BJP insider claimed that in the last four years, the party was unable to deal with corruption because it had to use underhand means to come to power by taking onboard persons “from other parties who were corrupt”. “They will remove all the corrupt now,” the leader said.

The first two years of the BJP government, under Yediyurappa, were also mired in allegations around his younger, unelected son, and his involvement in the administration of the state. BJP sources said: “Yediyurappa is no longer in the picture, and others can be handled. Vijayendra (his son) can be handled… This is why Amit Shah is saying they will freeze corruption.”

Sources in the government said the case against Virupakshappa was “just the tip of the iceberg”. It is a warning sign to others, they said, pointing out that action against such a well-placed MLA could not have occurred without a nod from the highest powers.

A senior government official said: “A war on corruption has been launched. This is the position of the government.”

For the BJP, the projection of a clean administration is important as it is attempting to win the Karnataka polls on the promise of governance plus Hindutva, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the face of the campaign (which has consistently proved a winning ticket against anti-incumbency).

In the past, when the Karnataka Lokayukta was an independent, quasi-judicial anti-corruption agency, it was not unusual for ministers and MLAs to be investigated and arrested.

In 2011, based on an investigation by the Lokayukta police, Yediyurappa himself had been arrested two months after he stepped down as CM, over an alleged scam to hand over government-acquired land for kickbacks. Yediyurappa associates and MLAs Krishnaiah Setty and Katta Naidu had also been arrested in this period as the BJP central leadership under L K Advani launched an anti-corruption campaign, and a Jan Chetna march, across the country.

In 2015, the Congress government under Siddaramaiah withdrew the powers of the Lokayukta police to investigate corruption cases and vested the powers with the ACB police, which reports to the state government. Subsequently, the ACB hardly ever got clearance to investigate senior officials or politicians between 2015 and 2022 – whether there was a Congress, Congress-JD(S), or BJP government.

In August 2022, the Karnataka High Court restored the powers of the Lokayukta police to investigate criminal cases of corruption. In its order, the court pointed out that while between 1994 and 2015, the Lokayukta police had initiated action against 67 politicians, 28 IAS officers, and eight IPS officers, the ACB had not prosecuted a single politician or senior bureaucrat since it came into existence in March 2016.

The Karnataka Lokayukta is now headed by a former high court judge, Justice B S Patil, who was chosen during Bommai’s tenure.