The minister's statements came amid rumours that just before the elections he had tried to save the marriage of the couple and Padmapriya, a mother of two, had agreed to postpone separating from her husband until the poll results were out. As part of the "deal", she had even campaigned for his victory.
Sample the minister's statements after Padmapriya was reported missing. He first called it a case of "half-kidnapping", but was never able to explain what that meant. A day before Padmapriya ended her life, he had said that she was "doing fine" and "would be reunited with her family within hours". Even as the minister was spreading the "good news" of her well-being on June 14, policemen were selectively leaking information to the media that the MLA's wife had been traced to a resort in Malur of the southeastern Kolar district.
This was done, it was later confirmed by top sources to Outlook, apparently to deflect media attention and ensure that Padmapriya doesn't "panic and flee" from her Delhi apartment—in Dwarka. On June 14, as the Malur story spread, chief minister Yediyurappa himself went on record congratulating the police for presenting "such quick results" in the case. But then, the story took a shocking twist the next day, Padmapriya was found hanging—after cops of the Delhi and Karnataka police broke open the Dwarka flat. The home minister again displayed prompt reflexes—this time claiming that she was suffering from "temporary depression" and hence had taken the extreme step.
This triggered a clamour for his resignation, but Dr Acharya, who until then had been acting like a family elder of the Bhats, brushed aside the demand by stating that he was not responsible for "every suicide". It is still unclear why the home minister had to entangle himself with so many statements within such a short span. Was he trying to hide something? If so, whose honour was he trying to save? These are questions that have remained unanswered.
A senior BJP leader from Udupi district, speaking to Outlook, claimed that Padmapriya had left home on her own volition after she had been "infatuated" by Atul Rao, her husband's close associate and a builder. He said she had taken the Kumta-Kundapura-Goa route to reach Delhi, where all arrangements had been made at an apartment in the southwestern Dwarka area for her incognito stay. "It is clear that she wasn't kidnapped because she had passed the security check at the Goa airport—and if she was being taken forcibly she would have told the lady police frisking her," the leader said. "The manner in which she had gone about her chores that morning is surprising. She had prepared breakfast for her husband, taken permission from her mother-in-law to visit her parents and later gone to her husband's finance company to pick up Rs 2 lakh cash. Her phone records make it clear she had even called the telecom guys and asked them to repair the landline that had gone dead. It's shocking that a woman from a conservative Brahmin family could decide to go away, leaving behind her two little kids," he added.
Atul Rao: The arrested chief suspect
Atul is now in police custody and has been charged with kidnap and abetment of suicide, but Padmapriya's husband Bhat has still not been subjected to any kind of inquiry. There is no clarity on whether the relationship between the couple had gone bad and if the MLA had become indifferent to her presence. It is quite revealing that he had taken three days to report the fact that she had gone missing. He had done so only after the police had found her abandoned car—near a temple in the Kunjarugir hills. The police had found from inside the vehicle broken glass bangles, cash, cellphone and tablets. Can Atul alone answer questions behind Padmapriya's mysterious flight from Udupi, when the local tabloids are afire with news of the MLA's "multiple affairs"? Was Padmapriya driven to go away from her home and make a new life elsewhere, unable to bear the "straying" of her husband? That's what the tabloids are asking. But, given the high-profile nature of the case, the police do not want to comment.
In an effort to contain any further damage, the BJP is now trying to treat it as a "private matter". Key party strategist and legislator Ganesh Karnik told Outlook that "decency demanded" that the family members be allowed to cope with the tragedy that has befallen them in privacy. "It is a personal matter. We should show some sensitivity. Whatever criminal angle there may be to the case, there is the police to probe," he said. On why the home minister and the CM had issued hasty statements on the issue, he only said it was the media that had "forced" them to do it. "Didn't you see how the media treated Padmapriya's mother on the day of the funeral and the scramble to get pictures of the two kids lighting the pyre?" asked Karnik. Like him, many other BJP leaders too hold the media responsible for the excessive focus on the sensational bits.
Blaming the media and acting coy could be a temporary mask before the BJP gets ready to lob a political grenade at its opponents. One senior leader of the party shared this with Outlook: "Please wait until the fact emerges that the driver of a senior Congress leader in Udupi was involved in transporting Padmapriya to the airport in Goa. The Congress high command has told local leaders not to allow our government to settle down till the Lok Sabha elections. Everything you see happening is a result of this." One has to wait and see if this political grenade will really explode or merely prove to be a dud.
