BJP has offered me Rs 30 crores in cash, as well as ministerial birth in May, claimed Congress MLA and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Women’s Morcha President Laxmi Hebbalkar this Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Belagavi, Hebbalker said a woman leader from the saffron party had contacted and made the offer over the phone, when she was in Hyderabad, but she rejected the offer then saying that she was a loyal worker of the Congress party and would never yield to any offers, TNM reports.
“I was offered Rs 30 crore in cash and a cabinet berth by the BJP leadership which attempted to rope me in as part of Operation Lotus,” Hebbalker said to media.
She added that “One of the Union ministers from Karnataka contacted my sister and other family members, requesting them to persuade me.”
The incident, she said, happened in May when Congress had moved all its MLAs to Hyderabad to protect them from being poached by the BJP as part of Operation Lotus, which she says has already informed her senior party leaders.
She has, however, refused to reveal the names of the BJP leaders who allegedly made the offer while Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Kore challenged her to reveal the names.
Hebbalker claims have aroused suspicions in the political circles since she revealed the matter after four months of the incident.