Yeddy paid `1,800 cr to BJP leaders: Report

New Delhi: Days ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, a political controversy erupted on Friday after a media report titled 'The Yeddy Diaries' published by news magazine 'The Caravan' alleged that former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa paid Rs 1,800 crore to some top BJP leaders with the Congress daring the government to order an investigation by the newly-appointed Lokpal. The BJP refuted the allegations as "baseless".

The report alleged that Yeddyurappa paid as much as Rs 1,800 crore to top BJP leaders, including veterans L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari. The report also carried published handwritten notes purportedly written by Yeddyurappa.

The report said the magazine accessed the copies of diary entries in the handwriting of Yeddyurappa that note payoffs amounting to over Rs 1,800 crore to the BJP leaders.

"The copies of the diary pages note that Yeddyurappa paid the BJP Central Committee Rs 1,000 crore; that he paid Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari Rs 150 crore each; that he gave Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh Rs 100 crore; and that he paid BJP stalwart Advani and senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi Rs 50 crore each," reads the report.

"Besides this, the entry notes, Yeddyurappa paid Rs 10 crore for "Gadkari's son's marriage." The diary entries also state that Yeddyurappa paid Rs 250 crore to "judges" and Rs 50 crore to "advocates (fee paid for cases)," but does not mention any names."

The alleged payouts were recorded by Yeddyurappa in a Karnataka state Assembly legislator's 2009 diary, in Kannada, in his own hand, the report said. Copies of these entries have been with the Income-Tax department since 2017.

The entries regarding payments to the BJP leaders, judges and advocates were written against rows dated January 17, 2009, while the entry regarding the BJP central committee was written against rows dated January 18, 2009, said the report, adding it was unclear whether the entries were made on these dates or written in the diary on a later date. Yeddyurappa served as the chief minister in Karnataka from May 2008 to July 2011.