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Eshwarappa courts controversy again, slams Cong leader with derogatory remark
Two days after making a controversial statement encouraging Bharatiya Janata Party workers to “hit back with the same strength” if any party worker is harmed, Karnataka minister KS Eshwarappa courted controversy again on Tuesday
Two days after making a controversial statement encouraging Bharatiya Janata Party workers to “hit back with the same strength” if any party worker is harmed, Karnataka minister KS Eshwarappa courted controversy again on Tuesday. While talking to the media, the minister used a derogatory term to describe Congress leaders.
Moments after uttering the word, he apologized and asked the media not to play it up, however, the Congress party took strong objection to the minister’s statement. “...Why I am using this term is because they don’t have any idea what to utter and what to omit,” Eshwarappa, who holds the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj portfolio, said during the press briefing.
Eshwarappa’s outburst came following a query from a journalist that someone from Congress had called him a joker. Responding to this, the minister said Congress leader Siddaramaiah had demanded that a Dalit leader should be made chief minister. “Since independence, the Congress had been in power but why they did not make any Dalit a chief minister. Should we give them any weightage?” Eshwarappa said. “Let them say now who is joker whether Congress, BJP or Eshwarappa?” he said. This statement began with the derogatory word.
Taking strong exception, former chief minister Siddaramaiah described Eshwarappa as a man lacking culture. “Only a man without culture can use such words. Eshwarappa does not have culture,” Siddaramaiah told reporters in Mysuru on Tuesday.
The minister’s outburst also drew a sharp reaction from senior Congress leader B K Hariprasad. “I appeal to health minister K Sudhakar to get Eshwarappa admitted to NIMHANS, the world-famous mental and neurological institute located in Bengaluru, at the earliest and get him the best treatment there,” Hariprasad said.
The minister was in the news when he said during a party workers’ meet at Shivamogga on Sunday that the BJP workers could give back in equal measure when rivals attacked them. “Today, the BJP has grown the world over, and if a BJP worker is touched anywhere in any corner, the instruction is to hit back with the same stick. In the past, the decision was to stay calm at all costs... We have become very strong,” Eshwarappa had said. Defending his statement on Monday, Eshwarappa told reporters “Do we have to be silent even if our women are raped? Our cows are stolen and killed, and our youth assaulted and killed -- you want us to remain silent?”
At the Sunday meeting, the minister also told party workers that there was a time when Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the party, and BJP top leaders used to ask party workers “to stay calm at all costs”, but now the situation has changed. “... We had to be calm, irrespective of the situation and how much we were attacked. We did not have the strength.”
Following this statement on Monday, a lawyer and RTI activist Bheemanagouda Paragonda has sent a letter to governor Thaawarchand Gehlot seeking action against Eshwarappa. The lawyer has also urged the Governor to remove Eshwarappa from the Cabinet and to direct the state government to initiate criminal proceedings against him.
“The minister’s statements are not only immoral and uncivilized but also illegal, the complaint said. They violate criminal laws under IPC Sections 153 A and B, 295, 505, 509, and under the Cr.PC, the People’s Representation Act, and other laws,” the lawyer told the media on Monday.
