Resolve Mahadayi, don’t spread lies, Siddaramaiah tells Amit Shah
Bengaluru : Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said BJP chief Amit Shah had made a habit of visiting Karnataka to “spread lies”.
Attacking Shah for failing to touch upon the Mahadayi issue during his speech in Mysuru, Siddaramaiah said, “Let Shah speak on Mahadayi first. He can’t come here, spread lies and go back. Shah has no moral authority to speak about corruption. Let him first impress upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the Mahadayi dispute. People have been waiting for water for the last two years,” he said.
Siddaramaiah also denied BJP’s charge that the Karnataka bandh was sponsored by the government. “The government has nothing to do with the bandh. It was called for by pro-Kannada organisations,” he said.
Taking a jibe at BJP leader K S Eshwarappa who equated Shah to a tiger, Modi to a lion, and Siddaramaiah to a mouse, the chief minister wondered if the state BJP leaders were “foxes”.
Energy Minister D K Shivakumar said the government was ready to respond to the corruption charges made by the BJP, as it had nothing to hide. “The BJP leaders are free to debate about corruption in the upcoming legislature session. They can take up the entire time for this,” he said.
Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy said the BJP could have urged the pro-Kannada outfits to withdraw the bandh. It was unnecessarily blaming the government, he said.
Plaint against Shah
The Congress will file a police complaint against Shah for claiming that more than 20 RSS-BJP workers were murdered in the state and that the government allowed the perpetrators to go scot free.
“Shah has lied once again. A complaint will be filed against him for misleading the people of Karnataka,” KPCC working president Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted. Ramalinga Reddy has said that only nine out of 23 killings of Hindus were communal in nature. The rest were Hindus killed by Hindus for personal reasons.
