New Delhi: The Congress Thursday filed a police complaint against Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Bengaluru for “spreading hatred among classes and religions”, “disrupting” the harmony of the state and knowingly making false statements to “malign” the party.
Karnataka Congress President D.K. Shivakumar and General Secretary in-charge Randeep Surjewala filed the complaint at the High Ground Police Station in Bengaluru.
The complaint was filed for Shah’s speech on 25 April during BJP’s poll campaign in Karnataka’s Vijayapura where the home minister, among other things, said the state would be “afflicted with riots” if the Congress comes to power. The Karnataka assembly elections are scheduled to take place on 10 May.
“…the speech given by Shri Shah was shockingly riddled with flagrantly false statements aimed at tarnishing the image of the Indian National Congress by levelling false and unfounded allegations, with a clear objective of trying to create an atmosphere of disharmony amongst the gathered crowd and the individuals viewing it on other media platforms,” read the party’s complaint.
The complaint also pointed to two other statements by Shah on former Karnataka CM and state Congress stalwart Siddaramaiah. During the speech, Shah first said that Siddaramaiah, during his tenure as the CM, had “released all PFI (Popular Front of India) workers who had earlier been kept in custody” and added it was the BJP who located them later and put them back in jail.
In his next statement, Shah said that if Congress was elected to power in the state, it will lift the ban on PFI.
The complaint was signed by Congress leader G Parameshwara, along with Shivakumar and Surjewala.
“Shri Amit Shah on 25th of April made very scandalous statements during campaigning. He made fake and false statements which has become the narrative of the BJP, saying that if Congress comes to power there will be communal riots. He also made a completely false statement saying that Congress will remove the ban on PFI,” Surjewala said, after filing the complaint.
“Shri DK Shivakumar and Shri Siddaramaiah, for months together, demanded a ban on PFI. It was Basavaraj Bommai who didn’t do so. Congress ruled this state for decades. The last government was between 2013 and 2018. We did not permit the harmony of the state to be ever disrupted. Congress has made no promise of removing the ban on PFI. We demanded the ban on PFI,” he added.
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