Five held for planting 'PayCM' posters; Cong MLAs to stick posters next

A day after the ‘PayCM’ posters taking a dig at Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai surfaced in Bengaluru, the police swung into action, arresting five people who were reportedly behind the act.

Infuriated by the arrest, Karnataka Pradesh Congress chief DK Shivakumar said party MLAs would stick ‘PayCM’ posters on all government buildings on Saturday. Opposition leader Siddaramaiah, too, said he would join the campaign in the coming days.

The development comes in the midst of an aggressive campaign against the state government by Congress, which charged it with corruption in awarding public contracts and government recruitment. The contractors’ body had recently levelled bribery charges that contractors had to pay a 40 per cent commission to get public works contracts, a charge strongly denied by the government.

According to reports, scanning the QR code on the poster took users to the 40 per cent Sarkar website launched by Congress recently.

Also Read: ED summons DK Shivakumar in connection with money-laundering case

While the Congress workers threatened to stick posters on government buildings, the Bharatiya Janata Party released a booklet called ‘Scam Ramaiah’, targeting the Opposition leader.

State BJP president Nalin Kumar Katil termed ‘PayCM” ‘Pay Congress Madam’ and released the ‘Scam Ramaiah’ booklet.

“Siddaramaiah will be arrested as per the court order. There were many scams during his tenure,” he said.

Not one to take things lying down, Siddaramaiah retorted, “How many people can be jailed by the BJP for seeking the truth? I will join my party workers in sticking posters about the 40 per cent commission corruption of the BJP government. Let the Government arrest all of us. Was Bommai sleeping when the BJP did a campaign targeting Congress leaders personally?’ he asked, referring to Bommai’s comment that the  ‘PayCm’ attack was personal.

He also said that even BJP made QR Code posters. “They have created an image where I was behind bars when I went before the ED inquiry. They have now arrested our workers.”

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