Karnataka's ex-BJP minister attempts suicide

The woman, by name Premkumari, in late 30s, told local news channels that though she had known Ramdas since five years, they had come close in the recent past after he had promised to marry her and look after her, as she was a widow with two children from first marriage.

“He (Ramdas) threatened to commit suicide if I speak to media and revealed our conversations, which I had recorded in my mobile handset,” Premkumari was heard telling news anchors in local language (Kannada).

Even as Premkumari was briefing the media Tuesday evening outside a government office where she works, Ramdas reported to have called her on mobile and threatened to consume poison if she did not stop talking to the media.

Ramdas, who held the medical education portfolio in the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, lost to the Congress candidate in the May 2013 state legislative assembly elections from the Krishnaraja constituency in the Old Mysore region.