Lok Sabha member Tejasvi Surya was forced to leave an election event in a BJP-dominated pocket of his Bengaluru South constituency after he failed to provide answers to questions fired by investors of a multi-crore cooperative bank scam in the locality.

The Bengaluru South MP, seeking another term, was at an election campaign in BJP-dominated Basavangudi on Saturday evening along with party leaders including his uncle and local MLA L.A. Ravi Subramanya.

The protesters were investors of Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank Niyamitha who lost their savings in the Rs 2,500-crore scam that came to light in 2020. While the Enforcement Directorate has so far seized assets worth nearly Rs 160 crore, the Congress government had in December 2023 ordered a CBI inquiry.

Things went out of control when a large section of the audience began asking questions about the delay in compensating them.

Although Surya and others tried to pacify them, the people were unhappy with their responses and heckled the leaders.

A video shared by the Karnataka Congress on its X handle shows Surya being escorted out of the event the MP himself had organised.

Surya can be seen arguing with some, apparently aggrieved investors, who confronted him, before being whisked away.

A group of supporters of the MP was seen arguing with the protesting investors, before the police intervened.

The Congress took a swipe at the MP “escaping” from the angry crowd without answering their questions.

“BJP’s Tejaswi Surya has once again escaped from the crowd through the Emergency Exit Door!” Congress said in an X post on Monday.

The allusion was to an incident when Surya “accidentally” opened the emergency door of an aircraft while it was still on the ground at Chennai airport on December 10, 2022. While the ministry of civil aviation had admitted to the incident, no action was taken against Surya. But the incident continues to harangue him on social media.

“The Bangalore South MP spent 5 years eating dosa, playing football and having fun, people expressed outrage against the problem of victims who lost money in Guru Raghavendra Co-operative Bank @Tejasvi_Surya,” the Congress alleged.

With the video of him being whisked away to safety going viral, Surya accused the Congress of engineering the unrest at the event.

“As the elections are approaching, the @INCKarnataka party, which has reached a desperate and deplorable state, is misleading the people and releasing products of its factory of lies every day, which is a reflection of the deplorable state that the party has reached,” he posted on X.

He alleged that the “the conspiracy of the Congress party to create a ruckus by deliberately sending people has been revealed along with evidence”.