Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s Hublot diamond watch stunner is BJP’s new target

BJP’s Karnataka unit president Prahlad Joshi, who represents Dharwad in the Lok Sabha, has announced that he will take up the matter in Parliament. “The Congress made such a hue and cry about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rs 10 lakh suit. What do they say now about Siddaramaiah’s Rs 70 lakh watch?” he asked.

The matter was raised by JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy about a week ago, in the midst of campaigning for the first phase of the state’s district and taluk panchayat polls, on February 13. The second phase is on Feburary 20. The BJP had dismissed the matter as “personal” and ignored it. Party national general secretary C T Ravi, who is also a state MLA, told ET, just before the first phase of the polls: “Kumaraswamy is trying to help the Congress. He is diverting attention to a personal matter that provides entertainment to the public, instead of raising serious maladministration by the Congress which has led to the death of over 1,000 farmers. Who cares what watch Siddaramaiah wears?”

But the traction that Kumaraswamy is getting in the media and a complaint by a Bengaluru activist, Ramamurthy Gowda, with the Karnataka Lokayukta alleging that Siddaramaiah has violated the Income Tax Act, 1961, the Karnataka Lokayukta Act and Representation of the People Act, 1951, by not paying tax for the gifted watch, is said to have led to a change in the BJP’s stance.

Analyst Harish Ramaswamy said the matter was not even politically relevant. “Kumaraswamy is very good at playing this kind of game. But unless it can be proved that the watch was given to Siddaramaiah in exchange for an administrative favour done, it cannot be called corruption. Kumaraswamy used similar tactics against former CM B S Yeddyurappa from the BJP, but those cases have not stood the test of law. Siddaramaiah’s case is not even as strong as that,” he told ET.

Siddaramaiah, who initially said he would sell his watch to anyone who paid him even Rs 5 lakh for it, is now maintaining a stoic silence. He had told ET, in an earlier interaction, that he was not aware of the brand or value of the watch and that it had been gifted to him. He is currently wearing a brown leather strapped watch, with the dial turned inward at his wrist, preventing anyone from glimpsing it.

Two senior backward classes leaders from the state in the Congress party, who have been overshadowed by Siddaramaiah’s emergence as the top leader in Karnataka, have also publicly objected to him wearing the watch. Congress general secretary B K Hariprasad has said a backward classes man should not wear such expensive accessories, while former KPCC president B Janardhan Poojary suggested that Siddaramaiah should do a Modi and auction his watch. “Let him give the proceeds to the families of the army personnel from the state, who died at the avalanche in Siachen,” he said. By ET.