CBI has asked the Karnataka Governor for leave to prosecute minister B. Nagendra
The letter is at Lok Bhavan. Priyank Kharge said on Saturday the agency has not written to the state yet.
The CBI has asked Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot for sanction to prosecute Planning and Statistics Minister B. Nagendra in the Valmiki Corporation case, The Hindu reported on Friday night. Multiple sources said the letter has reached Lok Bhavan, and that the Governor has not decided.
Nagendra is named in three CBI chargesheets over the alleged ₹89.63 crore embezzlement at the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation. About ₹79 crore has been recovered. He quit an earlier Siddaramaiah cabinet over the same allegations, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in July 2024, got bail that October, and was brought back as minister for planning and statistics on 3 August.
On Saturday, home minister Priyank Kharge said he had little information about any approach to the Governor, and that the CBI had not written to the state government. The BJP and JD(S) disrupted the legislature for a fifth straight day on Friday, asking for Nagendra to be dropped. The session resumes on Monday.
A CBI letter to the Governor, and a home minister saying the state has not been written to, is two governments talking past each other over the same minister. The Opposition already has its line for Monday. The Governor has given sanction in this case before, to the ED, in April 2025. Whether he does it again for the CBI is the only new fact that would move the file.
Watch Lok Bhavan, and whether Kharge's demand that the CBI write to the state first becomes the government's formal position. The Opposition has said it will keep the House stalled until Nagendra is out of the cabinet.