Godhra remark: MP Kateel demands arrest of Congress leader

Kateel said if the Congress leader has any information on a planned attack, he should inform the state home department.

Former Karnataka BJP chief and Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel on Thursday demanded the arrest of Congress MLC B K Hariprasad for saying he fears that a Godhra-like incident might be orchestrated in Karnataka ahead of the January 22 Ram temple consecration.

Former Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel.

Addressing reporters here, Kateel said if the Congress leader has any information on a planned attack, he should inform the state home department.

Otherwise, he should be arrested for spreading canards, the MP said. Kateel claimed that Congress was behind the Godhra train fire of February 27, 2002 in which 59 kar sevaks and Hindu pilgrims died.

He went on to claim that the gruesome attack, which resulted in the deadly Gujarat riots that left about 2,000 people dead, and for which his party members had been under investigation, was part of a plot hatched by Congress to bring down the then Gujarat government led by Narendra Modi.

He alleged that Hariprasad’s statement indicates that Congress would repeat such a purported act again. On former MLA Yatindra Siddaramaiah’s controversial statement that if India becomes a 'Hindu rashtra', it will become like Pakistan and Afghanistan under a dictatorship, Kateel insisted that India has always been a Hindu country.

“Mahatma Gandhi wanted the country to have Ram rajya, and not be a secular country," he claimed. "The idea of Ram rajya is itself the idea of Hindu rashtra,” he added.

"There is Ram in Siddaramaiah’s name too though his character is that of Ravan," the former state BJP chief mocked. Endorsing the 'I am Kar Sevak, arrest me' campaign launched by BJP MLA V Sunil Kumar, Kateel said he was also a kar sevak and dared the government to arrest him as well.