Fixers approached me: HDK

 Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda dismissed the claim of his son and Janata Dal(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday that some middlemen had offered him bribe in a defense deal when his father was the Prime Minister.

“Some middlemen had approached and offered me bribe when father was prime minister. They (middlemen) tried to approach my father through me for a defense deal,” he told reporters on Thursday. Kumaraswamy’s statement came amid the ongoing controversy with the Defence Ministry in focus. Gowda was the Prime Minister between June 1996 and April 1997.

Kumaraswamy said Delhi swarmed with large number of middlemen, who had the clout to “make or mar” the government.  “I had disclosed this information soon after I was offered bribe, but none took me seriously,” he stated. But Kumaraswamy declined to offer further details.

Asked why he was revealing it, the former chief minister said he felt it needed to be made public after Chief of Army Staff Gen V K Singh's claim that he was offered Rs 14 crore for allowing purchase of sub-standard vehicles for the Indian Army.

Within hours after his son’s claim that he was approached by an arms lobbyist, Deve Gowda rubbished it. “Nobody had approached him,” he told reporters. He said he did not know why Kumaraswamy had made the claim. “I don’t know in what context Kumaraswamy has said what he did.

Maybe he was provoked. I am making it amply clear that my party MPs nor any MP from any party approached me when I was the PM,” he said.

Commenting on his father’s stance, Kumaraswamy said that though he was approached by a middleman, Deve Gowda did not know anything about it.