Minister H Anjaneya's wife caught in bribery scandal

BENGALURU: In the first instance of corruption caught on camera in the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government, the wife of social welfare minister H Anjaneya was seen accepting an amount of Rs 7 lakh from a reporter posing as a contractor in a sting operation by private Kannada channel Suvarna News.

The sting showed a social welfare department official, Prabhakar, acting as an agent who worked out the deal with the reporter.

The official barters with the reporter over the commission for a Rs 7 crore contract to supply food to backward classes hostels under the social welfare department.The final amount of Rs 7 lakh is then handed over to Anjaneya's wife Vijayalakshmi.

Responding immediately to the sting, Anjaneya claimed that it was a deliberate attempt to tarnish his name. "I don't have to live my life by taking bribes. Somebody has deliberately set out to tarnish my name," he said.

Chief minisiter Siddaramaiah and all of Anjaneya's Cabinet colleagues declined to comment till they got "all details of the case".

BJP state president Prahlad Joshi demanded that Anjaneya be dropped from the Cabinet and said: "He and his mentor, Siddaramaiah, claim to care for the backward classes. But he steals from the meals to be given to poor children."