Karnataka ministers were only watching porn and not doing it: Parrikar

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The three Karnataka ministers who were sacked for watching porn clips in the state assembly were 'only watching and not doing it in action', a BJP leader said here on Thursday.

Leader of opposition Manohar Parrikar, asked about the three BJP ministers, told reporters: "There are people all across the country who do worse things. Congress leaders have chopped women and burnt them in a tandoor… In Madhya Pradesh, a Congressman chopped his wife and fed her to crocodiles… Then there was the Bhanwari devi case.

"They (the three Karnataka ministers) were only watching and not doing it in action like these Congressmen," said Parrikar, who also heads the BJP's good governance cell.

He also said that the action of the Karnataka state BJP to immediately sack the three ministers - Laxman Savadi, C.C. Patil and Krishna Palemar - was laudatory.

"I congratulate the party for taking action quickly," Parrikar said.

War continues

Meanwhile, Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda justified the setting up of an assembly panel to probe the action of two ministers, Laxman Savadi and C.C. Patil, caught watching a porn clip in the assembly Tuesday on the cell phone of another minister, J. Krishna Palemar.

The three quit on Wednesday following uproar in the assembly as well as across the state.

Dubbing the probe as an 'eyewash' and 'attempt to shield the guilty', the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) on Thursday separately met Governor H.R. Bhardwaj and urged him to take steps for immediate expulsion of the three from the assembly.

"The three have accepted their guilt. The whole world has seen what Savadi and Patil were watching on Palemar's cell phone. Then where is the need for a probe. They should be disqualified from assembly membership immediately," Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah of the Congress told reporters.

He and the state Congress chief G. Parameshwara led a protest in front of Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat in the city centre housing the legislature, and then marched to Raj Bhavan, about a kilometre away, to submit a memorandum to Bhardwaj.