Karnataka ministers accuses ED of coercing witnesses to name Congress leaders
The Congress government on Thursday accused the ED of exerting undue pressure on suspects and witnesses to falsely implicate the CM and senior cabinet members.
The Congress government on Thursday accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of exerting undue pressure on suspects and witnesses to falsely implicate the chief minister and senior cabinet members in the alleged illegal transfer of money from the Valmiki corporation.
Five senior ministers from the Siddaramaiah cabinet, in a joint address to the media, alleged on Thursday that the ED’s probe into the Valmiki Corporation scandal is politically motivated, aiming to destabilise the Congress government in Karnataka.
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Health and family welfare minister Dinesh Gundu Rao stated, “The ED has entered the probe, not with an intention to get to the truth, but with a malafide intention to destabilise the Congress government in Karnataka. The agency is coercing those it has questioned to name senior functionaries of the state government, asking them to say the money was used for election expenditure in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and in Ballari in Karnataka.”
Rao further claimed that suspects had been assured of protection by the ED if they named high-ranking state officials, while those who refused faced threats of severe consequences.
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The ED, in a statement on Wednesday, reported that a substantial amount of funds intended for the development of Scheduled Tribes (STs) had been misused to procure liquor and high-end vehicles just before the general elections.
Rao was joined by Karnataka IT minister Priyank Kharge, energy minister KJ George, revenue minister Krishna Byre Gowda, labour minister Santosh Lad, and the CM’s legal advisor, AS Ponnanna. Each minister expressed concerns over the ED’s selective targeting of cases involving non-BJP governments. Rao accused the ED of acting as the “political wing” of the BJP rather than an independent investigative body.
Priyank Kharge criticised the Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi for misusing the ED to conduct around 3,000 raids since 2014, with 95% of these raids targeting opposition members.
Amid these accusations, Karnataka BJP staged a massive protest at Freedom Park in Bengaluru and attempted to lay siege to the Vidhana Soudha, demanding Siddaramaiah’s resignation over the misappropriation of tribal welfare board funds. The protest, led by BJP state president BY Vijayendra and Opposition Leader R Ashoka, saw many detained by the police after they tried to storm the Vidhana Soudha.
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Vijayendra asserted that the chief minister should have resigned immediately upon discovering the misappropriation of funds meant for SC/STs. He claimed that former minister B Nagendra, currently in ED custody, had revealed that the misuse of funds was ordered by prominent leaders.
“The chief minister and deputy chief minister are haunted by the fear that Nagendra in ED custody might name them,” Vijayendra said, accusing the government of transferring SEP and TSP funds meant for the development of SC/ST communities elsewhere.