Congress launches Paycm campaign, CM Bommai fumes, orders officials to book people behind it

The Congress on Wednesday released a QR code named `Paycm’ shifting the gear in its campaign against Karnataka’s BJP regime over the alleged corruption in the award of government contracts.

The QR code that featured a line portrait of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai carried a line suggesting that “40% accepted here,” leaving the ruling party fuming. The CM ordered the officials to identify the people behind it and immediately book a case as he found it to be a “conspiracy to tarnish his image and Karnataka’s reputation.”

The QR code carries a mobile number and asks visitors to scan the code to make the CM pay for corruption. On scanning, it will ask people to raise their voice against corruption. The party later claimed that it had received one lakh responses from citizens.


Alongside, the Congress also stepped up its social media campaign, urging people to call and register their protest against the ruling party’s alleged graft.

The Chief Minister hit back at the Congress saying the BJP too knows how to run such campaigns on social media, but people knew the 40% commission campaign was a big lie. The government, he said, will make efforts to put an end to attempts to malign Karnataka.

A few days ago, posters had come up in public places in the neighbouring Telangana calling Karnataka’s BJP regime as a “40% government.” Such acts roil the cordial relationship between the two states, the CM had said.

The Congress has sought to keep the `40% commission’ charge alive and use it to attack the government at every opportunity, latching on to an allegation

the State Contractors Association made early this year and iterated later.

The Association had said its members must pay up to 40% bribe to ruling party MLAs in government contracts to get their bills settled, a charge the CM had dismissed as motivated.

State Congress Communication team chairman Priyank Kharge said the QR code takes citizens to the corruption rate card for different government services. “This rate card was released two weeks ago by the Congress, and the BJP has not denied it so far. The source of these rates is from BJP legislators themselves and from department sources as published by newspapers,” he told ET.

Karnataka is headed for the assembly polls in about eight months and before that will have crucial polls to Bengaluru’s civic body BBMP and to taluk and zila panchayat bodies.