Minister for Ports and Fisheries, and Muzrai Kota Srinivas Poojary on Thursday took exception to the way the Congress had organised violent protests over the arrest of the former Minister D.K. Shivakumar.
Speaking to presspersons here, Mr. Poojary said that the behaviour of Congress workers during the protests was strange and condemnable.
The arrest of Mr. Shivakumar was carried out by Enforcement Directorate.
The Congress was free to hold protests.
But he condemned the burning of photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and treating those photos in a bad manner, and abusing both of them in a derogatory manner. Stones had been pelted on buses in Mangaluru, he said.
“If this goes on, the BJP knows how to act against it. I warn Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao and the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the matter. Holding [counter] protests is nothing new for the BJP,” he said.
Mr. Poojary said that the Congress could approach the High Court or the Supreme Court in Mr. Shivakumar’s case.
Many politicians had been arrested earlier and there had been no protests of this kind.
“The Congress cannot resort to anarchic behaviour in the name of protests,” he said.