A day after the police took into preventive custody a few youngsters who shouted pro-Modi slogans in front of the venue of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with entrepreneurs in Bengaluru, there was a war of words between the BJP and the ruling JD(S)-Congress coalition over the matter.
Soon after the incident, BJP national president Amit Shah took a dig at Mr. Gandhi in a tweet by asking him not to intimidate the youth.
Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, on Tuesday, hit back at the BJP leader. “I advise Amit Shah to instruct his supporters to behave properly in public. It is their responsibility. Do they have any decency? When some other party’s programme is going on, they should have some decency,” he said.
Refuting the BJP’s claim that those who indulged in sloganeering had been arrested, former Chief Minister and coalition committee chairman Siddaramaiah said that workers of the BJP and RSS had tried to instigate the crowd. “As a precaution, some were taken away by the police and let off later. If they had been arrested, they would have been produced in court,” he said.
Meanwhile, the BJP State unit petitioned Bengaluru City Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar to conduct a probe into the episode and suspend the police officers who took the youth into preventive custody. A BJP delegation, led by former Deputy Chief Minister R. Ashok accused the police of “behaving like Congress workers”.
