Karnataka BJP MLA and former minister Arvind Limbavali landed himself in the soup after a video of his threatening a woman in his Mahadevapura constituency went viral on Saturday.
Limbavali threatened to send to jail Ruth Sagar Mary, a local activist who sought his help after civic authorities began removing encroachments on drainage systems, following instructions from Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. During a visit on Thursday, Bommai blamed the waterlogging in Mahadevapura on the encroachment of lakes and drains.
Mary approached the three-term MLA on Friday with a petition saying the Bengaluru civic agencies were trying to demolish her property built in 1971 and that the anti-encroachment drive was progressing arbitrarily. Losing his cool over the activist’s allegations, Limbavali tried to grab her petition and instructed the police at the scene to arrest her.
“He told me, ‘do you have any respect?’ You encroached on the land and have now come in front of the MLA. He repeatedly instructed police to take me to the police station and they did so. They detained me for several hours,” Mary said.
Incidentally, the activist had worked for Limbavali during his first stint as the MLA from the reserved constituency. Mary said she worked for Limbavalli in 2008 “assuming he was an educated person who could bring change”.
Limbavali appeared to lose his cool again as the video stirred up a controversy. “Go and talk to people. Why are you questioning me? Have I raped her?” he told a reporter.
In June, Limbavali’s daughter Renuka Limbavali was seen arguing with a police officer after her car was flagged for rash driving. “This is an MLA’s vehicle. For your information, this is an MLA’s vehicle,” she was heard telling the traffic police officer.
Questioned further, she said, “My father. Do you know Aravind Limbavali? I am his daughter. That’s all.”
Limbavali apologised on behalf of his daughter later.
Limbavali was part of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student wing. His first election from Mahadevapura, which houses Bengaluru’s information technology corridor, was in 2008.
The scheduled caste politician rapidly rose through the BJP ranks on account of his RSS background. He played a crucial role as a backroom player in engineering the collapse of the Congress-JD(S) government in 2019 by shepherding some rebel MLAs into jumping ship. According to BJP sources, when B S Yedyiurappa subsequently took over as chief minister in 2019, Limbavali was a probable candidate to be his deputy. But the emergence of a gay sex video attributed to the politician put paid to his prospects of becoming the deputy chief minister, although a forensic and police investigation suggested it was fake. He broke down in the Assembly later and claimed to have been targeted by rivals.
The BJP MLA has often been in the news over allegations of land grabbing, and Opposition parties have also accused him of high-handedness. Lokayukta police had booked Limbavali for allegedly favouring a well-known builder, but the Karnataka High Court quashed the case.
In his 2018 Assembly election affidavit, Limbavali declared that a case had been pending against him before a local court. The charges were wrongful restraint, unlawful assembly, rioting, and causing danger.
The AAP accused the MLA of threatening a landlord in Mahadevapura for leasing to the party a property where it set up an office in 2021.
AAP state president Prithvi Reddy said that other Opposition parties had failed to confront Limbavali though he had “misused his power against resident welfare associations and the public”.
“He forgets that is an elected representative and not a ruler. He has no respect for the very same people who elected him. The arrogance of money and muscle power are the reasons for this behaviour. He has repeatedly misused police and civic officials, whom he treats as his private employees,” he said. “We have been facing threats since we opened our office. He should be taught a lesson.”