This incident has dented the reputation of the Gowda family, whose head HD Deve Gowda is a former PM. The JD(S), too, has been hit hard in their leader’s fiefdom of Hassan, which he has carefully built over the past 60 years
The moment polling ended in Karnataka’s Hassan Lok Sabha constituency last Friday (April 26), its sitting MP and NDA candidate Prajwal Revanna drove to the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt in Germany.
The next day, the police found out that he had fled the country the night before while the state government formed a special investigation team to probe serious charges of sexual predation against him. Only a few days before polling, sex videos allegedly featuring him and a number of women – young and old – surfaced on social media leaving the public in Hassan as well as the rest of the state shocked.
The Gowda clan made a feeble attempt to dismiss the horrifying images as fake, but there were not many takers. The video clips seemed to have hurt his re-election bid and a panicked Prajwal fled the country fearing serious backlash.
Reputation dented, JD(S) hit hard
This incident has dented the reputation of the Gowda family, whose head HD Deve Gowda is a former prime minister. The JD(S), too, has been hit hard in their leader’s fiefdom of Hassan, which he has carefully built over the past 60 years. Some of his party leaders and workers have gone to the police against his grandson, aggravating the situation.
The most unexpected and shocking response for the family has come from Prajwal’s uncle and former CM HD Kumaraswamy. Reacting to the incident, he welcomed the SIT and said: “Those who ate salt should drink water, this is the law of the land. If he has fled the country, the police will bring him back. I have nothing to do with this incident.”
His hyper-aggressive older brother and Prajwal’s father HD Revanna has so far kept quiet and is yet to come out of his home since voting day. His politically ambitious mother Bhavani Revanna has switched off her phone since the video clips surfaced.
According to the police, there are hundreds of video clips while dozens of women have come forward to lodge complaints against Prajwal. A majority of them have alleged that he sexually assaulted them using his political and money power.
It is well known that Deve Gowda himself worked the phones to save his grandson before he fled. Chief minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar expressed their shock over the revelations and assured a free and fair investigation into the matter.
The SIT is headed by additional director general of police BK Singh, and has two women IPS officers – Suman D Pennekar and Seema Latkar. A team headed by Singh is also credited with successfully cracking the sensational murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh a few years ago.