The sex tapes allegedly showing Prajwal Revanna assaulting several women may just have cost him and the Janata Dal Secular the Hassan Lok Sabha seat, the only constituency it had won in the 2019 elections.
As of 12.19 pm, the JDS leader, who is the grandson of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and nephew of former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, is over 13,500 votes short of the Congress’ Shreyas Patel, who is leading from the constituency. He had won from Hassan with a margin of over 1.4 lakh in the 2019 general elections.
The videos showing Prajwal Revanna, who is the grandson of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and nephew of former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, had begun surfacing on April 23, three days before polling in the constituency. As the row escalated, the Hassan MP had left for Germany on April 27, a day after voting took place in Hassan.
A Special Investigation Team was formed to investigate the charges and a Blue Corner notice was also issued to help trace the MP, but he remained elusive. Finally, after fervent appeals and a warning from Mr Gowda and Mr Kumaraswamy, the JDS leader returned to India and was arrested in the early hours of May 31.
He was taken to a city hospital for a medical check-up and then to a court for his remand hearing. The police had sought his custody for 14 days but it was granted till Thursday.
Days before returning, Mr Revanna had released a video statement on X in which he had said, “I apologise to my parents… I was in depression (over political rivals’ attacks on the sex assault charges). I will appear (before the police team) on May 31. I will cooperate to the best of my abilities… I have the blessings of God…”
The Janata Dal Secular is contesting the Lok Sabha elections in an alliance with the BJP and is, so far, ahead on two seats.
The BJP had won 25 constituencies last time and is leading on 16 so far. The Congress is up from one in 2019 to leading in 10, but, if the numbers hold, it will still be disappointed because it had won the Assembly elections convincingly in 2023, winning 135 of the 224 constituencies. Winning 10 seats would mean that it has not been able to translate the Assembly victory into huge gains in the Lok Sabha election.
