BS Yeddyurappa Paid Rs 1,800 Crore to BJP National Leaders, Alleges Report

In a damning report that could tear Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s ongoing ‘chowkidar’ (watchman) rhetoric against corruption into shreds, a magazine report on Friday alleged senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister B. S Yeddyurappa (BSY) had in in 2009 allegedly made diary notings, listing out payouts worth Rs 1,800 crore to his party’s central committee and some of its top national leaders. Yeddyurappa, however, has termed the cited copies of diary entries and documents as 'fake' and 'forged'.

The Caravan magazine claimed it has access to ‘documents’ showing that dairy notings in BSY’s handwriting are in the possession of the income tax (IT) department. The report said: “Yeddyurappa recorded these alleged payouts in a Karnataka state assembly legislator’s 2009 diary, in Kannada, in his own hand. Copies of these entries have been with the income-tax department since 2017,” says the report, adding that “The copies of the diary pages note that Yeddyurappa paid the BJP Central Committee Rs 1,000 crore; that he paid the finance minister Arun Jaitley and the transport minister Nitin Gadkari Rs 150 crore each; that he gave the home minister Rajnath Singh Rs 100 crore; and that he paid the BJP stalwart LK Advani and the senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi Rs 50 crore each. Besides this, the entry notes, Yeddyurappa paid Rs 10 crore for “Gadkari’s son’s marriage.” The diary entries also state that Yeddyurappa paid Rs 250 crore to “judges” and Rs 50 crore to “Advocates (fee paid for cases),” but does not mention any names” alleges the report.

The report, however, says that the year when these alleged payouts were done is not clear. Remember, Yeddyurappa was Chief Minister from May 2009 to July 2011.

“The entries regarding payments to the BJP leaders, judges and advocates were written against rows dated 17 January 2009, while the entry regarding the BJP central committee was written against rows dated 18 January 2009. It is unclear whether the entries were made on these dates or written in the diary on a later date,” says the report, claiming that each copy of the diary pages accessed by the magazine bears BSY’s signature.

The Caravan report alleged that as per its information, the IT department under Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was “sitting” on the copies of these diary entries since 2017. Incidentally, Jaitley was in-charge of the Karnataka BJP between 2004-2013.

“A senior income-tax official took copies of Yeddyurappa’s diary entries to the finance minister Arun Jaitley, along with an unsigned cover note. The senior IT official asked in the note whether further investigation by the Enforcement Directorate—India’s top law-enforcement agency for financial and economic crimes—was viable. But Jaitley, who is named in the entries as having allegedly received Rs 150 crore from Yeddyurappa, chose not to act on the income-tax official’s note,” the report alleged.

As per the report, the IT department seized these ‘dairy pages’ during a raid at Congress leader DK Shivakumar’s residence in August 2017, and claims to have confirmation of this from the Congress leader.

On the notings allegedly in Yeddyurappa’s handwriting, The Caravan, said it got it confirmed by a senior Karnataka politician in the know of the IT raids.

“Alongside the cover note presenting the diary pages to the finance minister Arun Jaitley, the senior IT official attached two documents, to confirm that the signature and the handwriting is Yeddyurappa’s. The rest was a letter that Yeddyurappa had written in January 2017, to Sushil Chandra, who headed the Central Board of Direct Taxes at the time, urging him to take action against Shivakumar for his “irregularities and corruption.” The other was Yeddyurappa’s election affidavit, led to the election commission, ahead of the 2013 assembly elections in the state. But there is no evidence that the income-tax department decided to take any further action on the matter.”

The Caravan contacted the CBDT and sent queries to Yeddyurappa and other national BJP leaders named but said that they had not got a response till the story went into print.

Meanwhile, rejecting the documents cited by the article as "forged", Yeddyurappa told NDTV, "I am thinking of filing a defamation case...these are false allegations. The I-T department officials had examined and found that the documents and signature are forged...it is politically motivated."

Reacting to the Congress seeking a probe into the report, Yeddyurappa in a statement said the Congress had "lost the battle before it had begun", adding that the documents cited were 'fake' and the '"issue is a closed chapter."

Interestingly, the senior IT official oft cited by the magazine, is said to have told the magazines’ reporters that Yeddyurappa had made these ‘entries’ at the time he briefly broke away from the BJP to launch his one party, the Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) in 2012. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BSY merged KJP with the BJP.

“Journalists reported at the time that the personal assistants of these politicians were scrambling to secure their opponents’ papers—Yeddyurappa’s personal assistant allegedly attempted to kidnap his counterpart in Eswharappa’s office. During this time, Yeddyurappa’s personal staff procured his diary, which then reached the hands of other leaders likes Ananth Kumar, according to the senior official’s note. “One of the copies of it was also given to DK Shivakumar and other leaders to raise the issue at the appropriate forum,” the senior IT official’s note said,” as per the report.

In yet another interesting nugget, Sushil Chandra, who was the Central Board of Direct Taxes head when the IT raids were conducted on Shivakumar’s residence where copies of Yeddyurappa’s diary was reportedly found, is now an Election Commissioner of India, promoted by the Modi government.

Indicted by Lokayukta

It may be recalled that Yeddyurappa, who is steering the BJP’s election campaign in Karnataka, was earlier embroiled in a corruption case with the then Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde finding "foolproof" and clinching evidence against the then CM and his sons for receiving bribes for granting illegal favours to mining companies.

Hegde had prepared a voluminous report on illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka in July 2011 that had severely indicted Yeddyurappa.

CBDT Refutes Report

Refuting media reports, the CBDT on Friday said the ‘documents’ cited were xerox copies which were of ‘doubtful’ nature.

In a statement, CBDT said: “During the search (on DK Shivakumar), some loose papers were given to the raiding party. They were a xerox copy of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, Legislator’s Diary pages of 2009 with details of numerical entries against some individual names. The original of these documents was never given. “

It said after forensic analysis of the “disputed writings to establish its evidentiary value, originals of the same are required,” adding that “all efforts have been made by the Income Tax Office concerned to procure the originals of the disputed writings. … The same loose sheets prima-facie appear to be of a doubtful nature and were given by the person who was being raided for tax violations.”