Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) spokesperson M. Lakshmana on Friday sought action against the BJP leaders who had allegedly fanned religious hatred in December 2017 after the death of Paresh Mesta in Uttara Kannada district’s Honnavar.
After CBI recently filed a B report in the case terming Mesta’s death as accidental, Mr. Lakshmana told reporters in Mysuru that a battery of BJP leaders including Shobha Karandlaje, Aravind Limbavalli, C..T. Ravi, Sunil Kumar and Ananthkumar Hegde, who were in the forefront demanding the resignation of the then government, had misled the public by falsely claiming that the killing was a gruesome murder by Muslims.
The communal clashes and riots that ensued led had to a loss of an estimated ₹150 crore of public and private property while five Muslim youth, who were booked in the case, had to spend three-and-a-half years in jail, Mr. Lakshmana said while seeking the resignation of Ms. Shobha Karandlaje, who is now Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, and necessary action against the other BJP leaders. i
He dared the BJP government to adopt the UP model of bulldozing the properties of persons accused of fomenting riots against its party leaders to recover the loss to public and private property in the aftermath of the case. The BJP leaders had deliberately misled the public by alleging that the youth had been killed by Muslims even though the doctors had claimed that the death was due to drowning, Mr. Lakshmana said, while accusing the BJP of resorting to communalisation ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections during which the party won 35 out of the 37 seats in the region comprising the coastal districts of the State.
Cautioning the public against the possibility of BJP fomenting communal trouble again ahead of the Assembly elections of 2023, Mr. Lakshmana appealed to the general public against falling prey to the saffron party’s designs. “You are free to vote for whichever party you wish, but don’t fall prey to BJP’s evil designs”, he told the general public.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lakshmana questioned the State Government’s claim that an amount of ₹35 crore had been spent during the Dasara celebrations in Mysuru. Calling upon the Minister in charge of the district S.T. Somashekar to reveal the details of the expenditure, the Congress leader alleged that the commission paid by the contractors had gone up to 50 per cent in the Dasara related works in Mysuru.
He also alleged that Mr. Somashekar had cornered a lion’s share of the Jamboo Savari passes for distribution in his home constituency of Yeshwanthpur in Bengaluru.
