BENGALURU: Ahead of the Congress’ ‘Vote Theft’ protest scheduled for August 5, Opposition Leader in the Legislative Council Chalavadi Narayanaswamy addressed an open letter to Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, accusing the Congress of political hypocrisy, historical injustices and failure of governance in Karnataka.
The letter questioned Gandhi’s moral authority to lead any protest, especially on issues such as electoral fraud and corruption, without addressing alleged failures within his own party. Narayanaswamy raised 13 questions, from allegations of electoral manipulation against Dr BR Ambedkar, the Emergency during Indira Gandhi’s tenure, to current issues such as alleged corruption in the Karnataka, misuse of SC/ST funds, and law-and-order breakdown. RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge called out Narayanasw-amy for “hypocrisy and selective memory”.
Kharge reminded Narayanaswamy of a public statement he had made regarding a document attributing Dr Ambedkar’s electoral loss to Savarkar and Dange; he had dismissed the document as fake and vowed to resign if proven wrong. Kharge stated, “When genuine archival data was presented to authenticate the document, Narayanaswamy failed to resign.”