Prajwal’s driver, Devaraje Gowda trade charges over obscene videos

Bengaluru: Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna’s former car driver Karthik and BJP leader G. Devaraje Gowda accused each other of leaking the alleged obscene videos of the now suspended JD(S) leader.

While Karthik claimed that he had given the videos and photos to Devaraje Gowda seeking his help, Gowda refuting those claims alleged that Karthik was working in cahoots with Hassan Congress candidate.

In a video message on social media, Karthik said that he worked with Prajwal for the last 15 years but it has been a year since he was not working for him. “The reason (for distancing from Prajwal) was that my land was taken away and my wife was beaten up. I was mentally tortured. Because my land was taken away, I came out of the job and started my fight (to get back land),” Karthik said in the message.

The driver said he had approached G. Devaraje Gowda due to the rivalry between the families. Gowda had fought the 2023 Assembly election from Holenarasipura Assembly constituency on the BJP ticket and lost to Revanna.

In the meantime, Prajwal had brought a stay order to prevent me from releasing any photos or videos, Karthik said.

Following which, Gowda told me to hand over the photos and videos which he promised to hand over to the judge to help vacate the stay. Trusting him, I gave him a copy, which he used, the driver said.

The driver claimed that other than Devaraje Gowda, he did not give the video to Congress leaders or anyone else. “I did not give the videos and photos to Congress leaders because they were quite close to Prajwal. Hence, I approached Devaraje Gowda, but he too cheated me,” Karthik alleged.

However, refuting Karthik’s claims, Devaraje Gowda told reporters here in Bengaluru that Karthik had been hanging around with the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Hassan constituency Shreyas Patel.

He said that neither the JD(S) nor the BJP would release the videos as it would go against the NDA alliance’s candidate.

“If there was someone benefiting from this, it was Congress. Only for his political gain, the Congress candidate (Shreyas Patel) has mortgaged the modesty of women seen in the videos,” Devaraje Gowda said.

He said he is waiting for the SIT to serve him a notice where he will release important documents. The BJP leader said the Congress leaders will fall in the ditch they had dug for others.

The Karnataka government had constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) of IPS officers led by additional director general of police B.K. Singh to probe the alleged sexual harassment of many women by Prajwal, who is said to be in Germany currently.

An FIR has already been registered against Prajwal as well as his father H.D. Revanna at the Holenarasipura police station in Hassan district for allegedly sexually harassing their former cook.