Karnataka Congress has alleged that the state’s Chief Minister’s Office sent gift packs including cash and scotch bottles as ‘Diwali gift’ to woo journalists. The state unit of Congress further asked what else is included in the gift pack apart from cash, scotch bottles, wristwatches and gold coins.
The Congress on Saturday demanded the registration of a graft case over the issue of bribing journalists with cash. “Before the election – neither will I indulge in corruption, nor will I let others indulge in it. After the election – will take ’40 per cent commission’ and then send bribes to Karnataka media in sweet boxes on Diwali,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted adding, “BJP government of ‘PayCM’ and ‘PayPM’, corruption of ‘double engine’ across the country.”
According to a PTI report, Basavaraj Bommai, the Chief Minister of Karnataka has said he was unaware that “cash” was given to journalists.
A tweet from the official Twitter handle of Karnataka Congress read, “The great injustice of the government has come out from the honest journalists who say, ‘We don’t need a bribe box from the government, our lunch box is enough.’ What else is there in this box besides scotch, watch, gold coin? It is because of corruption that BJP has come to believe that everything can be bought with money.”
In a response to the allegations of the opposition party, the ruling BJP party defended their move and said that it is a tradition in the state to send sweets to journalists during Diwali. “Congress leaders are repeating the same old tape by making baseless allegations. They seem to realize that Bharat Jodo Yatra has not yielded results. There is a tradition of giving sweet boxes to journalists during festivals in the state since time immemorial,” said a tweet from the Karnataka BJP Twitter handle.
BJP also alleged that even Congress paid journalists to cover Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in the state. Another tweet read, “There is a discussion about the payment of money to the selected journalists by the State Congress during #BharatTodoYatra by the state president of your party himself.”
