'Valmiki Corporation scamsters honey-trapped officials to embezzle funds'

Bengaluru, Jul 11 (PTI) Senior BJP leader B Sriramulu on Thursday alleged that the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation scamsters honey-trapped government and bank officials to misappropriate money.

The former minister claimed that high-end luxury cars were purchased with the money meant for the welfare of tribal people. The money was laundered and used in different elections, including the Lok Sabha election, he further claimed.

"The scamsters purchased a Lamborghini car with the Valmiki Corporation funds, diverted money through 'hawala' channels and spent it on elections," Sriramulu claimed at a press conference here.

Former Minister Narasimha Nayak (Raju Gowda) alleged that the state government played a dubious role in the scam.

"We all know that more than Rs three crore cannot be transferred without the approval of the Finance Secretary, but on a single day Rs 50 crore was transferred. It is surprising that no one in the government knew about it," Nayak pointed out.

According to the BJP leader, the money was transferred to the accounts of 16 business persons. The amount transferred was somewhere between Rs 4.12 crore to Rs 5.98 crore.

Both the BJP leaders demanded the arrest of Congress MLA B Nagendra who resigned as Tribal Welfare minister after the scam came to light.

The alleged scam was uncovered when the Accounts Superintendent of the Corporation, Chandrasekharan P, took his own life on May 26 and left a suicide note alleging that a sum of Rs 187 crore was illegally transferred from the corporation.

This includes Rs 88.62 crore illegally credited to various accounts of some IT companies and a Hyderabad-based cooperative bank, according to official sources.

The Congress government thereafter constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has so far arrested 11 people in connection with the case.

The SIT has questioned Nagendra and Corporation chairperson Basanagouda Daddal.

Meanwhile, the central-government agency Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday raided several locations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana allegedly linked to Nagendra and Daddal. PTI