Hubballi: Nearly a year after stepping down from the Cabinet over a sex scandal, former Minister, H Y Meti, is trying to make a comeback with the Congress leadership reportedly promising him a party ticket in the coming elections to the state assembly if he could undo the damage to his reputation.
The Congress leader, who lay low all through the year after the scandal broke out, splurged crores on a grand birthday celebration on Monday.
His loyalists visited every village in Bagalkot assembly constituency to distribute the invitations for the bash and mobilised over 10,000 people for the convention he held in Rampur to showcase his strength.
A mammoth pandal and stage were erected over two acres of land for the event and the road from Bagalkot to the venue of the convention in Rampur village was dotted with cut-outs, flex-boards and banners.
Speaking at the convention, KPCC North Karnataka working president, S R Patil and several Congress legislators were careful not to mention the sex scandal and focused on the “good work” done by the former minister for Bagalkot district.
But Mr Meti hismelf claimed that the scandal was a conspiracy to tarnish his image and appealed to the people to elect him again in the next assembly elections.
Later, thousands of his supporters jostled with each other to garland him at the convention.
Although Mr Meti had tried to get re-inducted into the Cabinet after he was given a clean chit in the sex scandal by a state investigating agency, the woman, Vijayalaxmi, who was seen with him in the sex video, resurfaced a while ago and accused him of raping her several times, putting him in a fix all over again.
