The core committee of the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) has suspended its sitting Member of Parliament from Hassan, Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda, from the party. The decision was announced by JDS leader, former Chief Minister and Prajwal’s uncle H. D. Kumaraswamy on Tuesday.

The move follows the furore over Prajwal’s alleged involvement in the sexual abuse of several women, videos of which are still circulating in the public domain. These videos were also reportedly doing the rounds in the constituency till a few days before it went to the polls on April 26.

Prajwal, 33, is hoping to retain the Hassan seat as a JDS candidate. Around the election time, scores of pen drives, with the explicit videos, began circulating in the constituency. Many pen drives were reportedly found in buses, and public places included markets.

Once the videos went public, Prajwal reportedly left the country soon after the polling was over on April 26 in his constituency. According to reliable information, he is in Germany.

However, his father, H. D. Revanna, who is also under the scanner over charges of sexual exploitation of his domestic help, has claimed that Prajwal’s visit was pre-planned.

The developments have caused acute embarrassment to the Deve Gowda family. Kumaraswamy, party chief and Prajwal ‘s uncle distanced himself from the charges against his nephew. He was quick to add that JDS’ alliance partner, the BJP, was “unnecessarily being dragged into the controversy”.

Kumaraswamy, alleged that there was more to the development than met the eye. He accused the Congress of being involved in the circulation of the videos, even wondering why the Opposition waited till just before the polling on April 26 to release the offending clips.

Predictably, he hinted at a political conspiracy to defame the JDS-BJP alliance and the Gowda family. He added that even though the victims have not yet “complained to the government”, an SIT had been announced “on the basis of a letter that was written to the chief minister by the state’s Women’s Commission.”

The JDS leader said that the party will go by the findings of the SIT while claiming that the decision to suspend Prajwal was taken in response to “injustices towards women.”

Responding to queries, he said the question about expulsion of his nephew from the party, if needed, would come up if the probe finds him guilty. Since Prajwal was an MP, the matter would need to be taken up at the national level by the party’s national president, Deve Gowda.

These developments apart, some intriguing questions inevitably arise when one goes through the interviews that Karthik Reddy, Prajwal’s former driver gave to some news channels. Doubts have also been raised over the statements of BJP leader, Devaraje Gowda, who claims to have alerted the party seniors about the alleged ‘sex tapes’ well in advance.

Karthik, the driver, claimed that he had approached Gowda, who had contested, albeit unsuccessfully, against Prajwal’s father from Holenarsipura constituency in the 2023 Assembly polls, for help.

Karthik claimed that Prajwal and his friends had usurped his land while troubling him and his wife. He told the news channels that he had given the pen drives to Deveraje Gowda who assured him that he would help him get justice.

Gowda, however, argued otherwise, suggesting that Karthik may have given the pen drives to Deputy Chief Minister, D. K. Shivakumar, and Suresh Kumar, his brother the incumbent MP from Bengaluru Rural. However, Prajwal’s former driver refuted that claim.

Gowda had also told news channels that he had “alerted the BJP high command against having Prajwal as the combine’s joint candidate from Hassan because of his bad reputation. Nobody paid heed to me.” However, later he maintained that the leaders in New Delhi did not receive his letter.

He claimed that while he had sent Whatsapp messages to B. Vijayendra, the state unit chief of the BJP, the latter “had not seen them, perhaps because of his busy schedule”. Gowda’s conflicting statements have caused more confusion.

The JDS has also questioned the timing of the controversy over the sex tapes surfacing, claiming “they were over five years old”. The party leaders claimed that Prajwal had managed to get an injunction against news media from referring to them or showing them.

In a related development, the mother-in-law of the Revannas’ domestic help, who had filed a sexual harassment complaint against the father-son duo, has given a fresh twist to the story. She has claimed that her daughter-in-law had “lodged a false complaint against Prajwal and his father”.

She also claimed that the alleged incident appeared to have occurred five years ago and asked why her daughter-in-law failed to inform anyone or not file a complaint then.

That such an incident is embarrassing for the political class, should not come as a surprise.

In 2012, the state witnessed senior BJP politician Lakshman Savadi, now with the Congress, watching pornographic clips on his mobile in the Assembly when a session was in progress. He was the then Cooperation Minister in the BJP government.

The footage was filmed by a cameraman from the media gallery. The minister was sitting in the front row of the House while watching porn. He, however, was not alone, with another minister, C. C. Patil gave him company. The two had to resign, following public outrage.

Savadi was quick to claim that he was “watching the porn footage to prepare for a discussion on the ill-effects of rave parties”. Predictably, the incident caused acute embarrassment to the then BJP government.

Such irresponsible behaviour was, however, not limited to the BJP only. The Congress too had its share of moments that have embarrassed the party, the state and the government.

In 2021, Congress leader, Prakash Rathod, was caught watching a pornographic clip while the Assembly was in session. He too was caught in the act by a TV camera. When confronted, Rathod was quick to deny the act, claiming that he was “merely deleting clips from his mobile”. He added that “usually we do not carry mobile phones inside the House but I wanted to ask a question and therefore, I was checking my phone.”

In yet another case in Tripura a BJP MLA was caught watching porn in the Assembly. When caught in the act, he claimed that the videos started playing on his phone when he received a call on it.

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