Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday was accused of turning Karnataka into ‘Kashmir’ by BJP national general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Muralidhar Rao in Belagavi.
“Congress leaders think we are their enemies and not political opponents. They act as if they have the mentality of terrorists. The Chief Minister used unparliamentary words about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Siddarmaiah called Modi a mass murderer and equated him to Hitler. The people will not forget this. They will teach him a lesson in the elections,” he said, speaking to The Hindu.
The BJP leader also called out Siddaramaiah for identifying himself with groups that chant anti-national slogans and for organising Tipu Jayanti programmes in spite of strong opposition from nationalist groups.
He also cited the collapse of law and order in the state and pointed out the death of 14 BJP workers during his reign as Chief Minister.
The BJP leader also revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will tour the state later this month. He was speaking to media persons on the sidelines of a cadre development camp of the party’s booth-level units.
The comparison comes just six months before Karnataka goes to polls and the BJP has already begun actively campaigning in the state with the ‘Parivartana Yatra’ rally that started on November 2. Several BJP leaders have called out the current Chief Minister over the recent spate of communal incidents in the state.
Bajrang Dal activists reportedly disrupted a procession at Bababudangiri in Chikmaglur while MP Pratap Simha was arrested in Mysuru before Hanuman Jayanti celebrations in Hunsuru. BJP leaders are also crying foul over the death of a youth activist in Honnavara in Uttara Kannada.
Statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau revealed that there were 134 offences promoting enmity between different groups in the last three years in the state. In 2016, 100 people were victims of communal violence in the state, which is the fifth highest number in the country behind Jharkhand, Haryana, Gujarat and Bihar.