Tag: Ramalinga Reddy

‘Misinformation’: Karnataka BJP Deletes Another Social Media Post, This Time on Temple Panel

‘South First’ has reported that the post was taken down after the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government said the appointment of a non-Hindu to the temple committee was a tradition followed even during BJP rule.

The Karnataka unit of BJP was on Wednesday, May 8, compelled to delete a second post in as many days from its official accounts on social media platforms over misleading and controversial posts targeting the Muslim community.

A post was taken down after the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government called out the misinformation reportedly peddled by the BJP over appointment of members to a temple committee.

Objecting to the appointment of a member of the Muslim community to the “Brahmarathotsava” (car festival) committee of the Avimukteshwara Swamy Temple of Hosakote, Karnataka BJP said the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in the state was attempting to loot and take control of Hindus temples and their resources by appointing non-Hindus.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Minister for Muzrai Ramalinga Reddy were quick to call out Karnataka BJP on this.

They pointed out that appointing a member from the Muslim community to the car festival committee was a practice followed for several years — and was implemented even during the BJP rule in the state.

Reddy noted that a non-Hindu was appointed to the panel in 2020 and 2021 as well, when BJP was at the helm in the state. He added that appointments happened on the recommendation of then-minister MTB Nagaraj.

Based on the recommendations of Hosakote MLA Sharath Kumar Bache Gowda, the Hosakote tahsildar on Monday issued an order appointing 12 members — including a member from a Muslim community.

BJP’s misinformation

In its latest misleading post, Karnataka BJP said: “Congress appointed ‘Nawaz’ to oversee the Brahmotsavam event at the Shri Avimukteshwara Swamy temple in Hosakote.”


It added: “After attempting to loot our temples, the Hindu-hating CM Siddaramaiah now seeks to control temples and their resources by appointing non-Hindus.”

It also said: “Congress government in Karnataka appears to be in a hurry to implement Rahul Gandhi’s delusional ideas of stripping Hindus of their rights, to favour one particular community.”

It continued: “Today, it’s just one temple in Karnataka, tomorrow it might be every temple in India.”

After Karnataka BJP put up this misleading post on its official handle on X (formerly Twitter), several BJP leaders — including former national general secretary CT Ravi — shared the posts on their official accounts as well.

Congress calls out post

Within hours of Karnataka BJP putting out this post on social media, the Congress government — including Siddaramaiah and Ramalinga Reddy — called out the misinformation peddled by the Opposition party.

They buttressed their point with evidence, presenting the orders of the Hosakote tahsildar from previous years on the matter.

The Congress government claimed that the practice of appointing a member of the Muslim community to the car festival committee of the temple had been in place for several years, and that it happened even during the BJP rule in the state.

In an exclusive conversation with the South First, Minister for Muzrai Ramalinga Reddy said: “The annual Brahmarathotsava has been celebrated for a long time. A temporary committee is constituted every year at the time of the festival.”

Karnataka: Several Top Opposition Leaders Present as Ministers Sworn In

Apart from chief ministers of states where the Congress is in power – either on its own or in an alliance, leaders of “like-minded parties” also attended the ceremony.

New Delhi: Congress leader Siddaramaiah was sworn in as the chief minister of Karnataka at 12:30 pm on Saturday, May 20, with D.K. Shivakumar as his deputy. Eight other leaders were also sworn in as cabinet ministers, while top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said five key promises that the party made in its manifesto would be turned into laws.

The swearing-in ceremony, exactly one week after the Congress swept the assembly polls in Karnataka, was attended by other Congress chief ministers and leaders of “like-minded parties” – in yet another show of opposition unity. The event was held at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru, where Siddaramaiah had also taken oath in 2013.

Other leaders who were sworn in as ministers by governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot were G. Parameshwara, K.H. Muniyappa, K.J. George, M.B. Patil, Satish Jarkiholi, Priyank Kharge, Ramalinga Reddy, and B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan. The initial eight ministers were chosen from diverse backgrounds, with representatives of minority communities and marginalised groups like Scheduled Castes and Tribes.

Siddaramiah was chosen by Congress MLAs for the chief minister’s job over Shivakumar. The Congress won a decisive victory over the BJP in the assembly elections, winning 135 seats in the 224-member house.

Speaking at the ceremony, Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress government would turn the five guarantees in its manifesto into laws. These guarantees were the Gruha Lakshmi scheme, which will provide Rs 2,000 per month to every woman head of a house; the Yuva Nidhi scheme which will pay Rs 3,000 to unemployed graduates and Rs 1,500 to unemployed diploma holders every month for two years; the Anna Bhagya scheme will give 10 kg of rice per person per month to families that are below the poverty line; the Gruha Jyoti scheme promises to give 200 units of electricity free of cost to every household in the state; and the Saakhi programme will make bus travel within Karnataka free for women.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying whenever he goes to Japan, there is a decision to demonetise currency notes. Modi left to Japan on Friday to attend the G7 meeting, while the RBI announced that Rs 2,000 notes would be withdrawn from circulation immediately and they need to be deposited in banks or exchanged before September 30, 2023.

Among those who attended the ceremony were Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, his Chattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh counterparts Bhupesh Bhagel and Sukhwinder Sukhu – all Congress leaders. Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren were also present, as were Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav. The Congress is an alliance partner in these three governments.

Also present were key Congress allies NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and NCP leader Farooq Abdullah. Other opposition figures who attended the ceremony were Mehbooba Mufti, RLD leader Jayant Singh, actor-politician Kamal Haasan, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury and CPI leader D. Raja.

Five years ago, when H.D. Kumaraswamy was sworn-in as chief minister of Karnataka – in alliance with the Congress – a galaxy of opposition leaders had attended the event, in a similar show of strength.

‘We Only Asked Them to Talk to Us Politely – They Were Screaming at the Top of Their Lungs’

Two students of Jyoti Nivas College Autonomous, Bengaluru, talk about the viral video of their confrontation with BJP workers who hung a pro-CAA banner on the college wall.

Two students of Jyoti Nivas College Autonomous, Bengaluru, talk about the viral video of their confrontation with BJP workers who hung a pro-Citizenship Amendment Act banner on the college wall. They clear up rumours from both sides, and explain why they defended their college, ‘their second home’, from being used for political propaganda.

Names have been changed for their privacy and safety.

Sahana Bhatt: It was about 3:45 pm when we were leaving college, and we noticed there was an “India Supports CAA” banner on the college wall. Auto drivers, street vendors and pedestrians were being asked to sign the banner.

Misha Khan: Then they asked us to sign. I just said sorry, I don’t want to – but one of the political workers came to argue, gave us his political opinion about CAA, and why I should sign.

Sahana: I had seen the banner earlier, after class. I knew it was a political issue, and our college as an institution has never made a comment about this Bill. I asked them to remove it because it was on college property. When I was on my way home I saw that they had still not removed it. So I asked again, politely. That was when they started shouting.

Not on our wall

Sahana: I asked if they had permission from the college in writing. Because it’s a college protocol. Because usually when we go for protests, we require a permit… They shouted that they wouldn’t get one, they would not get a permit for everything.

A crowd started to form, and a few more students joined in to try and diffuse the situation. 

Misha: I had to return to the scene because I saw my friends and teachers there. The BJP workers were screaming at the students. I felt like I had to support them and back what I believed was right. Despite their yelling, the students were being polite.

Sahana was at the front and then I joined her. All we were asking was that they remove the banner. They kept asking us why we don’t want CAA – even though none of the students there had stated any opinion on CAA-NRC.

Sahana: They started calling us ‘uneducated’ and ‘illiterate’ because we didn’t want to have this on our wall. They called us ‘anti-nationals’. The workers started to call the Muslim students ‘Pakistanis’ and asked them to go back.

Misha: We were just waiting for the banner to be taken down and suddenly one of their slogans started: “GO TO PAKISTAN.”

Also read: Why I Fight

They said they had also studied in the same college as us? But it’s an all-girls college!

Sahana: They asked us questions about why weren’t saying anything to the street vendors who block the footpath.

Misha: Of course we wouldn’t. The street vendors are not promoting any political propaganda. When it got aggressive, the college authorities came. This was not captured on video. Our Sister of St Josephs of Tarbes came and she also wasn’t treated with respect. The management asked us to move away for our safety. We were asked to go back home and leave the matter to the management.

Sahana: They finally took it down after about an hour and a half because the police showed up.

The viral aftermath

Misha: Afterward… To be honest, we were really scared.

Sahana: When we reached home, we were really disturbed and everything was a blur. We had a really hard time going to sleep, coping with everything.

Misha: Obviously, when we were confronting them, we didn’t see who we were talking to. We just fought for what we thought was right. Only when we came home did we realise what we had just dealt with.

Sahana: That night, the video went viral, and rumours started to go around: That we were forced to sign, or that they tried to threaten us, or they said they would ‘slaughter’ us, or do the same thing as Jamia and JNU… They didn’t say any of that.

Misha: We worried how it might affect our college and students. So we want to clarify that those rumours are not true.

We were also overwhelmed by support from all across Bangalore. It was a potpourri of emotions: We felt proud yet at the same time, there was this sense of constant fear. 

Controlling the narrative

Misha: The next day was also scary because it was all over the news and social media. That’s when we saw the interviews with the BJP workers and what they had to say. We want to talk about that.

Sahana: In an interview with TV9, one BJP worker named Mohan Kumar, who was there, said he’d asked us not to use “unparliamentary words”.

Misha: He says that “five or six girls, used the four-letter word which starts with F”. There were no such words used. Actually, on the video, you just hear them call us ‘uneducated’, ‘illiterate’ and say we are not ‘Indian’ or are only concerned about ourselves.

Sahana: Our teachers were there. There’s no way we would use such language in front of them!

Misha: In the same TV interview, he says that management should have stepped in. But management did come and they were also disrespected.

Also read: I Protest Because I Love

Sahana: Then they said they spoke to the management extremely nicely and the management understood. Nothing like that happened.

Misha: In the video, you can see a teacher trying to reason with them, but the guy on the left keeps screaming and ignoring them.

Sahana: Teachers were talked down to in the same way as the students.

Misha: They portrayed themselves as victims. In the interview, he seems like a gentle, tolerant man. He says, “That girl in the helmet started blasting and came and said to us, ‘Why the hell you are putting up this board?”

We never said that. We asked them each and every time to talk to us politely while they were screaming at the top of their lungs.

The guy on the left said, ‘Do you want an argument or a debate’, and we said, ‘There is no debate.’ We just don’t want a banner on our college property when our college has never claimed it supports or opposes the Bill.

Sahana: In the same interview, he talks about how the college belongs to them and how it is public property. But our college is a private, autonomous institution. It does not belong to the public. They have no right or authority to put up their banners.

He says they needed a space and couldn’t disturb commercial establishments. But he seemed very willing and eager to disturb the students of a private institution.

In another interview, the deputy chief minister said that students do not have the right to question political workers. He said we should have just approached the police instead.

But the police, when they arrived, were taking videos of the situation instead of asking the men to take down the posters.

Misha: After everything was under control, we saw the BJP workers and police drinking tea together. There’s a video of that. So how do we go to the police when they seem to be friends?

In the interview, the men said that there was no “sloganeering”. They completely negated how they said “go to Pakistan”, and the tone they took with us and with faculty. It was downright disrespectful.

Sahana: None of the students there were speaking against their campaign. We were against their banner on our college wall. They asked us for other arguments or other reasons apart from this, but we stuck to this. We defended our institution.

As Trust Vote Nears, Karnataka Offers Lesson in Subversion of Democracy

An improvisation over the Karnataka BJP’s innovation of subverting the anti-defection law has made the current move deadlier than its 2008 experiment.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has certainly set new trends and established itself as a party with a difference. In the crisis unfolding in Karnataka, the party has changed the rules of engagement in the handling of members of the legislative assembly by springing a surprise that its rivals – the leaders of the Janata Dal Secular (JDS)-Congress coalition government – are bound to spar over for a long time to come.

An improvisation over the Karnataka BJP’s innovation of subverting the anti-defection law (by getting Congress and JD(S) MLAs to resign from the membership of the House and later getting them re-elected on a BJP ticket) has made the current move deadlier than its 2008 experiment. That year, the defectors were made to resign in ones and twos, unlike this month’s ‘Operation Kamala 4.0’, when a chunk of 11 resignations followed a lone member.

The precision with which the entire operation is being conducted has left its own party leaders, except four or five who were in the know, gawking. The most loyal Congressmen have been targeted and chosen to join Ramesh Jarkiholi, who has been holed up in a Mumbai hotel since December when he was dropped from the coalition ministry on grounds of “non-performance”.

BJP’s tallest leader in the state, B.S. Yeddyurappa has moved from saying “we are no way related to the crisis”, to listing to the media names of those jumping on to the BJP’s bandwagon. It just needed a D.K. Shivakumar arguing with policemen at a Mumbai hotel seeking “coffee with friends”, to clear up muddied waters.

Also read: SC Order On Karnataka Crisis: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

Shivakumar’s move changed the perception that the resignations were a result of internal differences within the Congress and between the Congress and the JD(S). The real factor was the BJP, determined to teach the coalition partners a lesson as the offer of chief ministership to H.D. Kumaraswamy by the Congress had thwarted its “Congress-Mukt” campaign of 2018.

This is not to say that the Congress-JD(S)’s forced marriage was anywhere near a workable one, particularly after fighting pitched battles for over four decades in southern Karnataka. The baggage of the past was hidden behind half-smiles and shaking of hands like professional diplomats before the cameras. Clearly, the central leadership of the Congress, which forged the alliance, did not look beyond its nose to see that the JD(S) has represented the anti-Congress sentiment in the state since 1967.

That was the year when the Congress Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments were formed in several states, the DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu and the long-lasting Left Democratic Fronts in West Bengal and Kerala. The coalition governments in the northern states fell as soon as Indira Gandhi emerged as a strong leader of a powerful party, post the Bangladesh War.

What we saw in Karnataka in May 2019 was that the anti-Congress vote simply moved over to the BJP. Plus, the Modi factor, riding on the platform of nationalism, resulted in a sweep unseen before against the Congress in Karnataka. Adding a topping to this victory for the BJP were the internal squabbles within the Congress as well as between the Congress and the JD(S).

The work of the coalition partners in the Lok Sabha election appeared as if the knives had already been sharpened over the year of coalition rule. Complaints of non-cooperation by JD(S) ministers to requests from Congress legislators were either not taken seriously or were brushed aside. Each of the “unhappy” MLAs have complaints of either not getting developmental funds for their constituencies or not having officers of their choice on boards or corporations they headed or deals within their domains being made at higher levels.

Clearly, the sharing-of-the-spoils system which the Janata Dal, the previous incarnation of the JD(S), had learnt from the Congress had been either forgotten or ignored. There are also instances like that of a senior and powerful Congress MLA not being even invited for consultations on city affairs by the minister-in-charge. This is where the BJP saw “Vikas” and targeted legislators who belong to the landed gentry with the promise of future commerce.

The BJP realised that the line between commitment to a party’s ideology and business interests has vanished and it was the right time to strike. The fickleness of the elected representative had reduced from 21 days of ministership to 24 hours of change of heart in a span of one week.

As of now, there is little chance of the coalition government surviving. If it does, it will again face this problem sooner than later. If it doesn’t, the BJP is also bound to face a wave of greed. Or will it go in for mid-term elections in December? If so, will it see 1985 happening? That is a call only the country’s second-most powerful man and Union home minister Amit Shah will take.

Either way, the entire operation to get back power could well be a lesson for political science students on ways to subvert democracy.

Imran Qureshi is a senior journalist.

Goa’s Voters Lose as BJP Deliberately Misreads Anti-Defection Law

Considering the Pramod Sawant-led coalition government was under no threat, the BJP’s gleeful embrace of the turncoats has also shaken the saffron party’s core supporters in the state.

Panaji, (Goa): The defection of 10 Congress MLAs to the BJP in Goa has not only plunged the already embattled national party into its worst crisis in the state in recent years but has also shaken the saffron party’s core supporters, who have been left astounded by the BJP national leadership’s gleeful embrace of the turncoats.

Three of the defectors will now be accommodated as ministers in the state government – a far cry from the legal requirement that all of them be disqualified for switching loyalties.

The Congress, which won 17 seats in the 2017 assembly election and was actually the single largest party – the BJP managed to win only 13 seats – is now left with just five MLAs. 

The BJP rank and file’s disapproval is understandable – after all, the Pramod Sawant-led coalition government in Goa was under no threat. Four short of a majority on its own (17 in a house of 40) till Wednesday’s events, six members from the Goa Forward Party and independents had helped the BJP cruise comfortably through half the term. Modi’s overwhelming victory in May had also ensured the allies stayed on.

Also read: Congress Decimated in Goa: 10 of 15 MLAs Defect to Ruling BJP

“I don’t know why they had to do it. I don’t see the reason. We already had a majority with the support of GFP and independents,” Nilesh Cabral, one of BJP’s more vocal ministers, said.

Goa Forward Party had been the BJP’s “most dependable ally”, the regional party’s leader Vijai Sardesai, reminded the BJP.

But none of that will matter now that the saffron party has gained a bloated majority of 27 overnight.

Sardesai, who scaled the ladder to the deputy chief minister position under the coalition deal, and three other ministers will likely be eased out in the cabinet reshuffle on Saturday to make way for the Congress defectors and deputy speaker Michael Lobo – credited with the Goa BJP’s “surgical strike on the Congress”.

Out in the cold, Sardesai’s comeuppance for his betrayal of the secular cause when he supported the BJP rather than the Congress after the 2017 assembly election result is the only silver lining in the latest political mauling in Goa, an AAP member told The Wire.

“The BJP has gained MLAs but lost trust,” Giriraj Pai Vernekar, a former aide of Manohar Parrikar, lamented. Parrikar’s son, Utpal, too lashed out at the “new leadership” for its opportunistic politics, adding that commitment and trust in the Goa BJP had died with his father.

In the eyes of many in the state, the BJP’s claim to occupy higher moral ground is hypocrisy at best. In this term alone, under Parrikar, the party rewarded former Congress chief minister Pratapsingh Rane’s son Vishvajit with a cabinet post for defecting from the Congress. In October last year, two more Congress MLAs were lured away to cynically bring down the numbers in the Goa assembly to keep the government from going under.

Just a few days after Parrikar’s death, two MLAs from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (two-thirds of the MGP’s three MLAs) were spirited away to the Raj Bhavan in the dead of night to be sworn in as ministers after turning saffron.

The new BJP legislature party currently has more “Congress MLAs” (16 out of 27) than dyed-in-the-wool saffronites. And more Catholic MLAs than Hindus – to highlight an uncomfortable detail for a party championing the Hindu rashtra cause.

Also read: Goa: Fearful of Modi-Shah Return, Catholics Consolidated to Thwart BJP

For all their venting on social media over the debasement of the BJP’s “culture and principles”, by the entry of the Congress turncoats – “vile scum” is how one bhakt described some of them – BJP voters are expected to line up and unquestioningly endorse the lotus symbol, irrespective of the candidate.

They did so in the May by-election when both Congress defectors were re-elected. An in-house mutiny ignited by the former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar against the previous defections too was shut down and never heard of again. In the face of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s aggressive expansionist agenda, there’s little room for protest for those who might disagree with the methods, say observers.

Unprincipled defections

On Thursday, speaker Rajesh Patnekar notified his acceptance of the “merger” of two-thirds of the Congress legislature party in Goa with the BJP, implying the merger was valid under the rules of the anti-defection law.

The media too played up the line that the current defections do not attract disqualification, simply because two-thirds had broken away from the legislature party.

Nothing could be further from the truth, says former judge and lawyer Cleofato Almeida Coutinho, who sees this as a deliberate misreading of the law to get away with unprincipled defections. “A legislature party split alone does not constitute a split in the party. For the merger of a national party, a split has to take place in the party at the national level,” he pointed out.

According to former secretary general of the Lok Sabha P.D.T. Acharya, the basic objective of the tenth schedule was to prevent defections, not facilitate them. Writing in The Wire in the context of the Telangana case where 12 out of 18 Congress MLAs defected to the ruling TRS, he said:

“The recent spate of defections in various state legislatures shows that defector legislators are under the impression that it is enough to mobilise two-thirds of the members of the legislature party and merge with the ruling party.

“Para 4 of the tenth schedule says that the original political party should merge with another party first. This would mean that the Congress party should merge with the TRS before these 12 MLAs can merge with that party. But there is no evidence that the Congress party has merged with the TRS. Therefore, there is no legally recognisable merger in Telangana.

“Further, the decision to merge with the TRS needs to be taken by the All India Congress Committee and not the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee. The Jagjit Singh vs State of Haryana judgment says, ‘In case a member is put up by a national party it is a split in that party which is relevant and not a split in that party at the state level.’”

The BJP believes it has struck at the heart of vulnerability – a “surgical strike”, one member said – of the Congress party in Goa in hijacking such a large number of MLAs. This will give the saffron party a foothold in constituencies in South Goa where it has little presence.

Also read: The Imminent Implosion of the Congress-JD(S) in Karnataka Has Happened

Whether this will impact the next election is another matter. But the action, says the Congress, shows a deep contempt for voters and India’s multi-party democracy.

“This is an assault on the constitution and the murder of democracy. Is the BJP looking to make India a one-party state?” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked during the opposition protest outside parliament on Thursday.

What will be most interesting to see, however, is how MLAs like Babush Monserrate, the catalyst of the Congress exodus, and all given to slithering in and out of parties – from UGDP to BJP to Congress to GFP to Congress to BJP – will fare under the watchful eyes of Amit Shah’s lieutenants.

Devika Sequeira is a freelance journalist based in Goa.

#BeyondTheHeadlines | As Congress Implodes From Karnataka to Goa, Its Leaders Remain Clueless

Watch Siddharth Varadarajan’s analysis of how dysfunctional the Congress and its leaders have become in the face of the challenges posed by the party’s poor electoral performance and the dirty tricks of the BJP.

Watch Siddharth Varadarajan’s analysis of how dysfunctional the Congress and its leaders have become in the face of the challenges posed by the party’s poor electoral performance and the dirty tricks of the BJP.

Congress Decimated in Goa: 10 of 15 MLAs Defect to Ruling BJP

The BJP’s numbers have gone up to 27 in the assembly.

Panaji: A group of ten Congress MLAs in Goa, led by leader of opposition in the assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar, on Wednesday merged with the ruling BJP – increasing the saffron party’s strength to 27 in the 40-seat house.

The Congress, which had emerged as single-largest party after the 2017 assembly polls in the coastal state, has now been reduced to five legislators.

Accompanied by Kavlekar and nine other Congress MLAs, Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant announced that two thirds of the Congress Legislative Party – enough to avoid action under the anti-defection law – has merged into the BJP.

The letter of merger was handed over to speaker Rajesh Patnekar in Sawant’s presence on Wednesday evening. Patnekar later said that he had received the letter.

The chief minister said with this, the BJP’s numbers have gone up to 27 in the assembly. The Congress MLAs had expressed willingness to join the BJP, he said.

Also read: The Imminent Implosion of the Congress-JD(S) in Karnataka Has Happened

At this juncture, the BJP had not taken any decision as to its coalition partners (whether to keep them in government or not), he added. With 27 MLAs, the party does not need allies anymore.

“For now, we have not decided anything,” he said.

The monsoon session of the assembly is scheduled to begin from July 15.

Sawant also said no new inductions in the state cabinet were on cards.

Kavlekar said he and other MLAs decided to join the BJP as development works in their constituencies were suffering as they were in opposition.

“We have seen Sawant’s working style. He is working for the progress of the state. We decided to join hands with him. Being in the opposition, our development works were also suffering,” Kavlekar said.

They joined the BJP unconditionally, he claimed.

Also read: Karnataka: Kumaraswamy Cabinet to be ‘Restructured’ After All JD(S), Congress Ministers Resign

The MLAs who joined the BJP along with Kavlekar are Atanasio Monserratte, Jeniffer Monserratte, Francis Silveira, Philip Nery Rodrigues, Cleaofacio Dias, Wilfred D’Sa, Nilkant Halarnkar, Isidor Fernandes and Antonio Fernandes.

The BJP has now 27 MLAs and its ally Goa Forward Party has three.

The Congress has five while NCP and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) have one MLA each. Three independent MLAs are BJP’s allies.

After the 2017 polls, a hung assembly had emerged with Congress winning 17 and BJP 13 seats. But the BJP outsmarted the Congress by cobbling together a coalition quickly.

Sawant and the ten newly-inducted MLAs are said to be leaving for Delhi late Wednesday night to meet the BJP high command, party sources said.

Keep Me Out of ‘Shameful’ Tipu Jayanti Event, Union Minister Hegde Tells Karnataka Government

The BJP leader has also written to the chief secretary and the Uttara Kannada deputy commissioner asking them to direct the state government not to include his name in the programme invitations.

Anantkumar Hegde. Credit: Twitter/@AnantkumarH

Anantkumar Hegde. Credit: Twitter/@AnantkumarH

Bengaluru: Union minister Anantkumar Hegde has conveyed to the Karnataka government not to invite him to the “shameful” event of Tipu Sultan Jayanti on November 10.

“[I have] conveyed [to the] Karnataka government not to invite me to shameful event of glorifying a person known as brutal killer, wretched fanatic and mass rapist,” Hegde said in a tweet yesterday.

The BJP leader had also written a letter to the chief secretary and the Uttara Kannada deputy commissioner, asking them to direct the state government not to include his name in the programme invitations to mark the birth anniversary of the 18th century ruler of the princely state of Mysore.

Reacting to Hegde’s letter, chief minister Siddaramaiah said he should not have done it as he was part of the government.

“As part of the government, he shouldn’t have written it…Invitation [for Tipu Jayanti celebration] will be sent out to all central and state leaders, up to them to accept or reject,” he told reporters here today.

Siddaramaiah also flayed the BJP for politicising the issue.

“There were four wars against the British and Tipu fought them all,” he said, while claiming that Tipu was a “freedom fighter” who helped liberate India from the yoke of colonialism.

State home minister Ramalinga Reddy said, “Any MLA or MP will be invited to an event happening in his or her constituency.”

“It is a protocol, and has been done earlier and will be continued in future too… To attend Tipu Jayanti or not is up to Hegde,” he added.

In 2016, Hegde had flayed the state government for celebrating Tipu Jayanti despite opposition from some sections of the society living in coastal belts of the state and Kodagu areas, claiming that the ruler was “against Kannada language and anti-Hindu”.

Subsequently, Hegde was arrested for threatening to disrupt celebrations in Uttara Kannada district.

The Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been in thick of controversies for his anti-Islam comments and assaulting a doctor in his district a few months ago.

The government’s decision to celebrate the day on November 10 last year had drawn much criticism from the BJP and the RSS, who termed this act of the Congress as “minority appeasement”.

The Siddaramaiah-led government is all set to celebrate Tipu Jayanti despite widespread protests and violence that had marred celebrations in the last two years.