Karnataka Police declines to deliver Digvijaya Singh's letter to rebel MLAs

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In yet another setback to Madhya Pradesh senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, Karnataka Director-General of Police (DGP) Praveen Sood declined to deliver his letter to his party rebels staying at a resort in the city's northern suburbs, a party official said on Thursday.

"Singh requested Sood to deliver his letter to 18 rebels through his staff as he was not allowed to meet them by the police deployed at the resort and the latter also did not want to meet him," the party's official Prakash Rathod told IANS here.

Singh sought Sood's help to reach out the defiant rebels as a candidate in the March 26 by-elections for his re-election to the Rajya Sabha from the central India state.

"As I am unable to meet my party legislators who are my voters in the by-polls, I have appealed to them to vote for me, as 16 of them are still MLAs because the assembly speaker did not accept their resignations so far," Singh told reporters here earlier in the day.

Singh's attempt to meet the rebels on Wednesday did not succeed after the Karnataka High Court declined to direct the state DGP for allowing him to enter Ramada resort where the rebels have been staying since March 14 night. They shifted from another resort on the city's northern outskirts where they checked-in on March 9 on flying from New Delhi and Bhopal in two chartered aircraft.

"Sood told Singh that he cannot be his courier man to deliver the letter as the latter went to the high court for a direction to him and that his case was adjourned for next hearing on March 26," Rathod recalled.

Accusing Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa of preventing Sood from allowing him to meet the rebels, Singh said he wrote the letter to the rebels after the police chief on Wednesday told him he could give a letter to him stating that he wanted to meet the legislators as a party candidate for the Rajya Sabha by-elections.

Sood told Singh that he had to consult the state legal team even for receiving the letter because the latter sought judicial intervention by going to the court.

Sood also told Singh that he could not allow him to enter the resort as the rebels wrote to him again on Wednesday that they did not want to meet the latte and sought protection for them by deploying security in and around the resort.

Charging the BJP and Union Home Minister Amit Shah with "scripting and executing" the ongoing political crisis in the central Indian state, he appealed to the rebel legislators not to take any step that will favour the JP Nadda-led party.

"I have sympathy for the DGP as he is under pressure from Yediyurappa not to allow me to meet my party legislators or deliver my campaign letter to them," Singh said.

Terming the developments as "power game" the BJP has scripted in the country, Singh said it was "conceived, authored and executed" by the party under Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

"You people call it as operation lotus, it is nothing but operation money bag. There are huge sums of money, it happened in Karnataka in the past," alleged Singh.

Singh also alleged that the Madhya Pradesh BJP leaders, under investigation on charges of corruption in several scams like Vyapam and e-tendering, do not want the 15-month-old Congress government to continue.

"The money is given (for operation) by Shah, chartered flights and hotels bill are being paid by his party (BJP) and contractors who benefitted from the scams," Singh thundered.

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