State president of the BJP B.S. Yeddyurappa said here on Thursday that communal clashes in the State have gone up after K.C. Venugopal, general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) from Kerala, was made Congress in-charge of Karnataka.
Addressing a protest meeting of BJP workers during Mangaluru Chalo at Jyothi Circle here, he alleged that the Congress in-charge was instigating communal murders in the State.
Mr. Yeddyurappa said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has unnecessarily trying to scuttle the Mangaluru Chalo motorcycle rally of the youth wing of the party in the State. It was out of the fear that the BJP will come to power in the State. He was misusing the police, he said. “It is akin to Emergency declared by the former Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi and the Congress will see its result (in the next elections),” Mr. Yeddyurappa said. He said that as an Opposition party, the BJP organised a peaceful motorbike rally demanding action against the Popular Front of India and Karnataka Forum for Dignity.
The former State president of the party Pralhad Joshi said that the party would not allow killing of party activists as was being done in West Bengal and Kerala. If the Congress fails to ban PFI and KFD, then it would pay for it dearly in the forthcoming Assembly elections, he said.
The former Chief Minister Jagadish Shetter said that while the Criminal Investigation Department failed to trace the accused in the murder of scholar M.M. Kalburgi in the last two years, it was quick to give a clean chit to K.G. George, Minister for Bengaluru Development and Town Planning, in connection with the death of Deputy Superintendent of Police M.K. Ganapathy. “This government is known for giving clean chits,” he said and added that the order of the Supreme Court to hand over the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation was a rap on the State government.
Cautioning the police against following the dictates of the Congress government, Udupi Chikamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje said that police officers should know that the BJP would come to power in the next few months and Mr. Yeddyurappa will be the next Chief Minister. The former Home Minister R. Ashok said that the fight of the party was against advisor to Home Minister Kempaiah.
President of the State unit of the party’s Yuva Morcha Pratap Simha said that the party would strive to get back Assembly seats in the coastal region that the party has lost to the Congress. MP Nalin Kumar Kateel said that instead of using the police to arrest murder accused and anti-social elements, the State government was using it against BJP activists.