World | India
Indecency costs ministers their jobs
News channels covering assembly proceedings in Indian state of Karnataka shoot shocking spectacle
- IANS
- Published: 00:00 February 9, 2012
- Image Credit: Supplied
Bengaluru: Allowing news channels to cover legislature proceedings in the south Indian state of Karnataka has cost the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dear. Three of its ministers quit yesterday after cameras caught them watching pornography in the assembly.
The three ministers — Laxman Savadi, C.C. Patil and J. Krishna Palemar — have been barred from house proceedings, but demands are growing for their expulsion from the assembly. The state legislature secretariat, which for security reasons normally bans video and photo journalists from covering proceedings, however, allowed them to record the current session from the visitors' gallery.
Video journalists of two or three Kannada news channels noticed the ministers glued to a cellphone and zoomed in for a closer look. They captured telling video footage of Savadi and Patil watching sleaze on the phone that belonged to Palemar. Incidentally, the phone also had a video clipping of a government-sponsored rave party held on an island off the state's west coast, which showed foreign tourists drinking, doing drugs and indulging in obscene acts.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari said a probe would be carried out. "First of all, they said they are innocent. We said ‘resign immediately and an inquiry will be done'. It is unfortunate," he said.
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