Congress leader and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah today accused the BJP of trying to divert attention from the allegations of corruption by dragging in his deceased son’s name into the ‘Bitcoin scam’ and demanded a judicial probe by the Supreme Court to unearth the truth.

“BJP is trying to hide their corruption by bringing the name of my deceased son. I urge Karnataka CM to order for Judicial enquiry by Supreme Court to investigate about Bitcoin scam including our term,” he said in a series of tweets today.

Siddaramaiah said that the BJP is levelling personal allegations to pursue their agenda. “It has been 5 years since my son left us but our family is still grieving. It is unfortunate he will not be able to reply to the allegations on him. BJP is trying to get personal to pursue their dirty agenda in politics….BJP has alleged that my son Rakesh was seen with Sri Krishna’s friend Hemant Muddappa. Then how can we interpret the photo of Narendra Modi with Nirav Modi during 2018 World Economic Forum?” asked Siddaramaiah sharing the photo.

Siddaramaiah said that it has been alleged that an important BJP leader had received Bitcoin as quid pro quo for mediating the release of Hemant Muddappa when he was arrested with Sri Krishna. “Nalinkumar Kateel may know who that leader is,” said Siddaramaiah.

Kateel is the BJP chief of Karnataka where a multi-crore Bitcoin scam has surfaced in Karnataka with hacker Srikrishna Ramesh at the centre of it. After arresting Ramesh, Police claimed to have recovered 31 bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore from him. Ramesh is accused of hacking three bitcoin exchanges, some poker websites as well as Government of Karnataka’s e-procurement website among other portals. During the investigation, he had claimed that one Hemanth Mudappa gave him details of two of the accounts of Karnataka’s e-procurement website.

Last week, Congress General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala had alleged that the size of the scam could be way bigger than expected and claimed that illegal transactions worth Rs 5240 crore took place on December 1, 2020 and April 14, 2021.