Prajwal Revanna, In 2023, a non-profit organization called ADR analyzed 4,763 election affidavits. They published a report showing that 134 sitting MPs and MLAs had cases related to crimes against women. Despite knowing about these charges, major political parties still gave them tickets to run in elections. These parties are fully aware of their candidates’ criminal records but choose to support them anyway.
In Karnataka, on April 26, a sitting MP, who is involved in the biggest SEX scandal in the country’s history, stands for re-election. He campaigns and asks for votes. When news comes out that he forced women and made videos of them, this happens during the second phase of the election in Karnataka. Here are all the details of what happened.
Prajwal Revanna’s video in pendrive :
On April 26, 2024, elections were scheduled for 24 seats in Karnataka, and only five days were left. All the political parties were busy with their election campaigns.
Then came April 20, 2024. On this day, in the Hassan constituency where Prajwal Revanna was a candidate, something strange happened. Unknown people appeared and started throwing USB drives everywhere—in homes, markets, buses, and trains.
At first, people were confused about what was on these USB drives because they were found everywhere. After some time, a few people decided to check them out. When they did, they were shocked. The USB drives contained 2,976 videos featuring their local leader, Prajwal Revanna.
In the video, he was filming himself forcing women and girls. Many clips showed girls begging and crying to be let go. He laughed like a madman while they suffered. One video made people especially angry. In it, a woman around 60 to 65 years old was screaming as he forced her.
There were over 2,000 videos, and he filmed more than half of them himself. In some, someone else did the filming. There were nearly 3,000 videos in total, each with a different woman, and their faces were clearly visible.
At that time, the faces of the victims were revealed publicly. This included female party workers, village council members, government officials, police officers, and even housemaids. The whole area erupted in outrage when this news came out.
When there was a commotion in the area, Prajwal’s supporters went straight to the police station. They complained that someone was ruining their leader’s image during the election. They said people were using AI to make fake videos of him and sharing them on social media.
At first, everyone thought these were fake videos. But then people noticed that the store inside Prajwal’s house was in the video. The clothes, the way he sat, and the things around him looked real. So, people started to believe the videos were real.
With the election coming up on the 26th, these videos were causing a lot of talk. Meanwhile, Prajwal was visiting people’s homes, asking for votes, giving speeches about safety, and holding rallies one after another. So, all these things were happening at the same time.
The election took place on April 26, 2024. The campaign was over, and the video had made its impact.
The day after the election, on April 27, 2024, Prajwal used his diplomatic passport to fly to Germany. His flight was at 2 PM, and he left around 11 AM.
Complaint against father and son :
As soon as Prajwal left for Germany on April 27, something new happened. On April 28, 2024, a 47-year-old maid who worked at Prajwal’s house went to the Holenarasipur Town Police Station and filed a complaint. In her FIR, she said she worked at Prajwal’s house and that there were six female maids and some male workers in the house when she started working there.
There were 6 female maids in the house, and the rest of the workers were male. These 6 female maids warned the new maid to stay away from Prajwal Revanna when he was home. They said that whenever Prajwal came home, all the female maids got scared.
The new maid said that about 3-4 months after she started working, Prajwal forced himself on her. When she complained to Prajwal’s father, instead of helping her, he also started forcing himself on her.
Because of this, she filed a complaint against both Prajwal and his father. She mentioned that she had silently endured this for many days.
In her complaint, she said she stayed quiet for many days because she was scared for her life. One day, her daughter visited Prajwal’s house for some work. Prajwal took her daughter’s number and started video calling her. When he began bothering her daughter, the maid decided to stop working there and blocked him from her daughter’s phone.
When asked why she was filing the complaint now, she said that after hearing about the video incidents, she got the courage to come forward. As a result, an FIR was filed against Prajwal Ravanna and his father under IPC sections 354-A(Sexual harassment), 354-D(Stalking), 506(Criminal intimidation), and 509(Word,gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).
Nagalakshmi Choudhary(Woman’s commission chief Karnataka State) :
In the same week, Karnataka’s Women Chief Commissioner, Nagalakshmi Choudhary, also received the video. In her official statement, she said she watched the video but couldn’t bear to see it all. She mentioned that the video is very disturbing and will make anyone angry.
In the video, girls are seen begging and pleading to save themselves. Nagalakshmi Choudhary said this is one of the biggest scandals in the country’s history. Some of the girls in the video reached out to her, some even contacted her on WhatsApp without revealing their names. They shared all the details and asked for help.
After hearing everything and understanding the details, they wrote a letter to the CM and Home Minister of Karnataka. They said it was very important to take action in this case. After the letter, a special team called SIT was formed to investigate the matter.
This SIT had 18 senior police officers. It was led by Vijay Kumar Singh, the Additional Director General of Police and Chief of CID. Two senior women IPS officers, Suman and Seema Lakkar, were also part of the team.
The team was divided into three parts. One team recorded the victims’ confessions. Another team did lab testing on videos and traced IP addresses. The third team charged the accused and reached out to victims to understand the whole situation.
Who had kept the video of Prajwal in the pendrive ?
But the story doesn’t end here. In fact, a new story starts from this point. The videos were old, about four or five years old, but they were kept safe and released at a specific time—right before the elections. This timing caused political issues, and the story that came out was very unique.
Prajwal Revanna’s family had a driver named Kartik who was very trusted. He had worked with the family for over 15 years. First, he worked with Praswal’s father and then continued with Prajwal Revanna himself. Kartik knew everything about Prajwal Revanna. It is said that he was so trustworthy that even anonymous properties were put in his name and taken back when needed. This all happened around the year 2022.
In 2022, a driver was given 16 acres of land in Bolenarsipura. The driver says he has all the papers to prove the land is his. However, people who know the situation believe that the Revanna family gave him the land and later asked for it back, causing a dispute.
This 16 acres of land became the root of the controversy. The Revanna family asked the driver, Karthik, to sell the land and return the money. At first, Karthik evaded them for several days. When things escalated, he quit his job in March 2022.
Even after quitting, Karthik received threats but remained firm about not returning the land. He then showed all his documents to prove that the land was legally his.
The driver goes to court and shows all the documents. He files a case saying that the land belongs to him, but Prejwal Ravan is trying to take it away by force and threats. He also mentions that there was an attempt to kidnap him.
Kartik, the driver, used to spend a lot of time with Prajwal Ravan. He knew everything about Prajwal. Kartik had access to all of Prajwal’s digital devices, including his mobile phone. The phone had many important videos stored in it.
Kartik saved all these videos on a pen drive. Because of these videos, Kartik felt more confident about keeping the 16 acres of land, even if Prajwal tried to resist.
At that time, JDS was with Congress. To take advantage, Karthik’s driver thought it would help to contact a BJP leader. He believed that meeting or informing a BJP leader would benefit him.
In that constituency, there was a BJP leader named Devaraja Gowda. He was also a lawyer and had run against Prajwal from BJP but lost. Another person named Manju filed a case against Prajwal Revanna, claiming that Prajwal lied about his assets in the election affidavit. The court put a stay on the issue, but nothing much happened. Prajwal easily got out of the case and was running for MP again.
The driver had only one option left: to reach out to BJP leader Devaraje Koda for help. The driver asked Devaraje for assistance, and Devaraje agreed to take on his case.
While Devaraje was helping the driver, the driver mentioned that he had some videos and photos stored on a pen drive. As the driver revealed this information, Prajwal Raevanna found out about it.
On June 1, 2023, Prajwal Revanna went to court and claimed that there were some edited videos being used against him as part of a political plan. He believed this was part of a plan to defame him.
On June 2, 2023, the court ordered a stay against 86 media entities and three individuals, including a driver. The court ruled that no one could publish or share anything related to these videos. This order stopped everyone from taking any action related to the videos.
The video was on a pen drive that the driver kept with him the whole time. Dev Rajegowda asked the driver to give him the pen drive. He said they would submit it to the court, hoping it would help their case.
Many days passed with this going on. Eventually, the pen drive reached Dev Rajegowda. Then, in September 2023, it was found out that JDS left Congress and joined BJP.
Devaraje Gowda and the driver got upset when they found out that Prajwal Revanna was being given one of the three seats. Devaraje Gowda told the driver that they were not getting justice from the code, so they needed to find another way. They decided to cancel Prajwal’s seat.
The driver agreed with this plan. On December 8, 2023, Devaraje wrote a letter to Karnataka BJP President Vijender Yedurappa. In the letter, he mentioned that it would be a bad move for BJP to support Prajwal through their alliance with JD(S).
For a few days, there is no news. Then suddenly, in January 2024, Devaraj Gowda holds a press conference. He says he has things that will reveal the secrets of the Revanna family.
After this press conference, the driver in the video claims that Devaraj Gowda stopped answering his calls. The driver says he had nothing to do with it after that.
Later, the election date is announced. Five days before the election, unknown people throw around pen drives. When all this information spreads and the election happens, everyone suspects the driver leaked it since he had the pen drive.
But the driver denies it. He says he gave the pen drive to Devaraj Gowda to submit to the court and didn’t give it to anyone else.
GDS blamed everything on Congress. First, they removed Prajwal Ravanna from their party. Then, GDS said that Congress Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar leaked all the videos. They claimed he did this because the competition was very close in 2-3 seats, and he wanted to win.
Right now, Prajwal tweeted that he hasn’t run away but had to go out for important work and will return soon. His lawyer also replied about this.
In this whole political drama, the girls suffered the most. They had to endure a lot at that time, and now, just a few days before the elections, their faces are out in public for political motives. So, the biggest victims of this politics are these girls.