The Chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Karnataka unit Nalin Kumar Kateel on Monday said that people of the state should prioritise the “issue of love jihad” in the 2023 elections over civic issues such as “road, gutter, drain, and other small issues.”
Karnataka goes to polls likely in April or May this year.
In the video that has been widely circulated on social media, the saffron party MP can be heard saying, “So I am asking you people, don’t speak about small issues like roads and sewage…If you’re worried about your children’s future, and if you want to stop love jihad, then we need the BJP. To get rid of love jihad, we need the Bharatiya Janata Party.”
Kateel was speaking at the launch of ‘Booth Vijay Abhiyaan’, organised on Monday to prepare party cadres in constituencies of Mangaluru city for the upcoming elections, reported The Indian Express.
Kateel also welcomed the Popular Front of India (PFI) ban, adding that the group had planned a “series of murders” targeting Hindu activists.
“Had the PFI not been banned, today we wouldn’t have BJP leaders Monappa Bhandary and Hari Krishna Bantwal (of Dakshina Kannada) on stage. MLA Vedavyas Kamath would not have been here. There would have only been a garland over their photos,” he said.
BJP trying to spread hatred: DK Shivakumar
Meanwhile, Karnataka Congress tweeted the video, and criticising the minister’s statement said, “…Development of the state, employment and education are minor issues! It’s shameful that BJP has asked its party workers not to talk about development, of which it has done little.”
Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar also said that the BJP MP sent out a ‘very bad message’ and the saffron party is trying to ‘spread hatred’.
“This is a very bad message. This is proof that they are trying to spread hatred and break up the country rather than giving priority to development. While we are focusing on development, job creation, hunger, price rise, they are just playing people on emotion,” DK Shivakumar was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
Earlier, on December 21, union home minister Amit Shah in Bengaluru said that in the Karnataka elections, people of the state have a choice between those who developed Hindu places of worship such as Ayodhya and Badrinath and those who glorify Tipu Sultan, as per IE.
Karnataka anti-conversion Bill
Notably, Karnataka legislative Assembly in December passed The Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, commonly referred to as the anti-conversion Bill, which prohibits conversion from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, fraud, allurement or marriage. The bill then went to the Karnataka Legislative Council which had also passed the contentious bill, that was tabled by the state’s ruling BJP, amid protests from the Opposition.