BENGALURU: Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa on Friday spiked Congress’s allegations that he had made payouts to senior BJP leaders in 2009, when he was chief minister. Yeddyurappa said the diary entries Congress are talking about are fake.“I-T officials have already probed the issue and fond the documents and signatures and handwritten notes were forged,” Yeddyurappa said in a statement.He was responding to a scathing attack launched by Congress leaders on BJP, based on media reports about entries purportedly made by Yeddyurappa in a 2009 diary. The notes are now in the custody of the income tax department. The handwritten note in Kannada states Yeddyurappa had paid crores of rupees to BJP leaders as well as some unnamed judges and advocates. The media report was expected to create a splash amid mounting fervour for the Lok Sabha elections, putting the BJP on the back foot. But leaders from the saffron party put on a strong defence.BJP leader and Yeddyurappa’s aide Shobha Karandlaje retorted: “This is nothing but a poll-related conspiracy hatched by a nervous Congress. It is a fake diary. It is the creation of the Congress which is losing ground across the country. The Congress is making baseless allegations as they cannot counter PM Narendra Modi’s achievements. We will not be disturbed by such allegations, we will continue to focus on fighting elections.”BJP Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar said: “This is nothing but a failed Cambridge Analytica thought pattern that the Congress tries to repeat like a good student when things start looking bleak for Rahul Gandhi .”Meanwhile, the income tax department claimed that the loose sheets of diary notes were found during searches at water resources minister DK Shivakumar’s residence. The state unit of the Congress, however, latched on to the diary disclosures to target the opposition BJP.Former chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted: “When @BSYBJP added #Chowkidar to his name, he meant that even he is a Chor like his boss. IT dept, on the other hand, is acting like a #Chowkidar for @BJP4India by withholding all the documents to protect them from being convicted. Why did @BSYBJP pay 1800 Cr to their high command? Is it to convince that he can fund for #OperationKamala? Does this mean that the conversation between late Ananth Kumar & @BSYBJP, about funding @BJP4India leaders, is true? This is what we get when #ChorHiChowkidarHai.”

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