‘Sleazegate’ ministers reply to speaker’s notice

Three Karnataka ministers involved in what has come to be known as the ‘sleazegate’ scandal Thursday submitted their replies to assembly speaker K.G. Bopaiah’s notice over watching porn in the assembly.

Laxman Savadi, C.C. Patil and J. Krishna Palemar gave their version of the incident that forced them to quit the D.V. Sadananda Gowda ministry Feb 8, a day after cameras caught them, leaving the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party badly bruised.

Savadi and Patil were caught on TV cameras watching a porn clip in the assembly on the cell phone, which they said, belonged to Palemar.

“Their response has reached my office. I will look into it,” Bopaiah told reporters here.

Details of their response are not known.

Bopaiah said he would go ahead with his plan to set up an assembly committee to probe the action of the three. The Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) have said they will not nominate their members.

The Congress and JD-S maintain there is no need for a probe and the three should be immediately expelled from the assembly.