The Karnataka police on Wednesday arrested state BJP leader Manikanth Rathod in connection with alleged theft of rice meant for the Anna Bhagya scheme. Under this scheme of the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government, 10 kg of food grains are given to every member of the economically weaker section (EWS) families every month. According to the police, 6,077 quintals of rice worth more than Rs 2 crore was stolen from the government warehouse in Shahapur of Yadgir district in 2022. Speaking to The Indian Express, a police officer said that Rathod did not respond to several notices issued to him for appearing before the investigation team. Rathod, a BJP functionary from the Kalaburagi district, had contested the 2023 state Assembly election on the party ticket against Priyank Kharge, the son of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge. Priyank, who defeated Rathod in the election, is currently the Minister for Electronics, Information Technology, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet. Rathod had made news in the run-up to the Assembly polls, held in May 2023, with the Congress alleging that he was “hatching a plot to murder” Mallikarjun Kharge and his family. At the time, the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, had released an audio clip of a purported conversation between Rathod and a local BJP leader in which Rathod was heard saying that he would “finish off” the wife and children of Kharge. Rathod had rejected the Congress’s allegation as “baseless” and “a lie”, calling the audio clip “fake”. Rathod, 27, hails from the Gurmitkal belt, which had been a stronghold of Mallikarjun Kharge. He has been known for his criminal track record marked with multiple cases that include attempt to murder, drugs and narcotics smuggling, illegal possession of fire arms, and criminal intimidation. While he faces 40 criminal cases, Rathod has been convicted in three cases and has served a one-year sentence in prison so far. He has been out on bail in the remaining cases. Of the three convicted cases, he was booked in 2013 for rash and negligent driving endangering public life in which he paid Rs 2,400 as fine. In 2015, he was booked for stealing milk powder that was supposed to be supplied by the government for children and served a one year jail sentence. In 2015, he also had to pay Rs 2,000 as fine for giving false information to a government official. In November 2022, Rathod had also allegedly issued a threat to murder Priyank Kharge for which he was booked in Kalaburagi and arrested from Hyderabad. He was later released on bail in this case too. In his affidavit submitted to the Election Commission while filing his Assembly poll nomination, Rathod declared his movable assets to be worth Rs 11.34 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 17.83 crore besides a loan of Rs 15.33 crore as his liabilities. His immovable assets included agricultural lands, a rice mill, and flats in Hyderabad, Kalaburgi and in Maharashtra’s Thane.
