MANGALURU: Several BJP leaders, including state party president B S Yeddyurappa, and hundreds of workers were detained on Thursday as police foiled a bid by the party’s youth wing to hold a bike rally. The rally was organised to protest the alleged killings of Hindu activists in the coastal districts of Mangaluru and Udupi and seeking the resignation of district minister Ramanath Rai.
Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha also demanded a ban on Social Democratic Party of India, Popular Front of India and Karnataka Forum for Dignity, describing them as ‘radical’ outfits responsible for the ‘unrest’ in coastal region.
As a precautionary measure, police had banned the bike rally or a procession in the city and had allowed BJP to only hold a public meeting at Nehru Maidan. Amid a tense stand-off, BJP workers started pouring in hordes at Jyoti Circle, starting 9.30am. Police had put up barricades at several places on the way to Hampanakatta to stop people from marching in groups and from organising the bike rally.
However, hundreds of workers managed to slip through Jyoti Circle and started marching towards the Deputy Commissioner’s office which is about 3 km away. But they were detained before entering the DC’s office. The workers entered into heated arguments with the police and even tried to push them away on being stopped leading to skirmishes.
The party leaders who addressed a huge gathering at Jyothi Circle dared the police to touch their workers stating that they would come back to power after four months. But the police were not lenient and stopped the workers when they tried to carry out the bike rally. Many leaders and workers were bundled into the buses which took them away. Several bikes were seized.
Apart from Yeddyurappa, other leaders, including Jagadish Shettar, R Ashoka and K S Eshwarappa, were detained and released later.
Nalin Kumar yells at inspector
Mangaluru: MP Nalin Kumar was caught on a video shouting at a police inspector for detaining BJP workers at Go Rakshana Hall in the city. On hearing that some workers who were detained for violating the ban orders during Mangaluru Chalo, he stormed into the hall and told Kadri police inspector Maruti Nayak to release them and not book any cases. He threatened to call Dakshina Kannada bandh if the workers are not released.
Cong govt will create unrest till polls: BSY
Mangaluru: BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa on Thursday charged the Congress government with trying to create unrest in the state until the next assembly elections which are five to six months away.
Addressing a gathering of BJP workers, he said communal violence escalated in Karnataka after AICC general secretary K C Venugopal was made Congress in-charge of the state. The state is facing an “undeclared emergency-like situation” where agitations are suppressed, he said. “We are not even allowed to protest the murders of our workers.
The police department is being misused,” he alleged. The former chief minister demanded the resignation of Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George in the wake of the Supreme Court ordering a CBI probe into DySP M K Ganapathy suicide case. Former deputy chief minister R Ashoka sought to know whether Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and district minister Ramanath Rai have any blood relations with PFI, KFD and SDPI which, he said, were behind the murders of Hindu activists.
Urging BJP workers to take out a procession to DC Office, Ashoka asked them to demand ‘warrants’ if they were stopped. “A survey has revealed that the BJP will come to power in the state in the next elections. So I tell the police to act as per law. Think before touching our workers,” he dared.
Dharwad MP Prahlad Joshi said all the Hindu workers who have been murdered belong to OBCs and hence the chief minister should stop shedding his crocodile’s tears for them. Former minister Shobha Karandlaje said the Congress is scared of just one bike rally and the BJP has many more weapons which it will use. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel said the BJP will protest until the government bans PFI, SDPI and KFD.