Karnataka Polls: EC to hold enquiry on Amit Shah’s comments tomorrow, says RS Surjewala

The Opposition Congress on Thursday filed a complaint against home minister Amit Shah with the Bengaluru Police and urged the Election Commission to bar him from participating in the BJP poll campaigning.
AICC general secretary RS Surjewala and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar, who filed the complaint at the High Grounds police station, said Shah, sitting in a high position, was trying to intimidate voters by saying that Karnataka would see communal strife if the Congress came to power.

Karnataka is due to go to assembly polls on May 10. Speaking to the media, Surjewala alleged that the home minister, addressing a rally on April 26, said the cases of communal violence would increase if the Congress came to power.

Shah even said the Congress would withdraw the ban on the PFI while Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar always sought a ban on the PFI while the Basavaraj Bommai government dragged its feet, Surjewala said.

The BJP was misleading voters with its set of lies in fear of losing the polls, the AICC leader said.

The party had also filed a separate complaint with the Election Commission seeking action against the home minister for violation of the model code of conduct and to bar him from future public campaigning in Karnataka. The Commission had agreed to hold a hearing on April 28, Surjewala said.

The BJP hit back saying the Congress had stooped to a “new low” in frustration as “as it is now training its guns” on home minister “for taking action against its ally - terror org PFI.”

The Congress, the party tweeted, cared only about appeasement and not Kannadigas. “They are upset that HM has made Karnataka safer by crushing terror cells.”

Karnataka elections BJP co-in charge K Annamalai said the Congress had been upset because of the pressure from its undeclared ally SDPI. “Their ally is angry about the fact that the NIA has clinically destroyed PFI and other terror cells in the state & made this state safer for its citizens!,” Annamalai, who is also BJP Tamil Nadu unit president, tweeted.