A few minutes after provocative speeches by leaders of pro-Hindu organisations and Bharatiya Janata Party, a few young Datta devotees, who assembled at Bababudangiri on Sunday, attempted to break the barricades and enter the disputed site of holy cave shrine Sree Guru Dattatreya Bababudan Swamy Dargah.
BJP MLA C.T. Ravi, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Suryanarayana Rao and Saidatta Raghunatha Guruji were the prime speakers in the programme organised to mark the occasion.
Mr. Ravi, who displayed some documents to the audience, claimed that the records proved that the shrine was a Hindu place of worship. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was delaying appropriate action in this regard only to satisfy his party’s vote bank, he alleged, while remarking: “how long should we wait?” “We are fighting for justice and in the Kurukshetra war, only those with truth and justice will win. In a democracy, we will not fight the war with bullets, but with the ballot,” he added.
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Mr. Rao called upon the audience to always refer to the shrine as Datta Peetha and stop using the word Bababudangiri. “The State government is making efforts to retain this place as a centre of harmony. We will not let that happen. As in the case of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, I am hopeful that our struggle will soon yield desired results”, he said.
Minutes after these speeches, a few youths barged into the burial ground and attempted to damage tombstones. Before the police could rush to the spot and take control, one of the tombstones was uprooted. The police had to resort to mild lathi-charge.
Reacting to the incident, Mr. Ravi said it was a minor incident expected in a big event. “When thousands of people are gathered, such things do happen. Placing saffron flags have happened in the past as well,” he said.
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When it was brought to his notice that the burial ground was targeted for the first time, the MLA maintained there was no intention of uprooting yythe structures. “If we wanted to damage the structures, why should we do it in the presence of such a large number of policemen?” he argued.
More than 20,000 devotees had gathered for the Datta Jayanthi programme. The number of people this year was the highest in the last three years.
The upcoming elections to the State Assembly is said to be one of the reasons for the huge crowd. Interestingly, many vehicles that ferried devotees carried posters of BJP leaders from their respective areas.