Bengaluru: The House, on Wednesday, February 19, discussed Congress legislator U T Khader’s statement “the state will be on fire”, on the third day of the joint session of Karnataka’s legislative bodies.
It can be recalled that, before any anti-CAA protests erupted in Mangaluru, UTK, during a public address in Ullal, Mangaluru had said, “If the Centre implements CAA and NRC and the state government abides by it, the whole state will be on fire.”
The leaders from the ruling (Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government) party took up the issue and slammed UTK for making such a statement.
As a counter to this, the Opposition leaders stood in UTK’s support and said that he had not made such a statement. They challenged the ruling party to prove if he had said so.
Siddaramaiah said, “There is difference between ‘I will set the state on fire’ and ‘the state will be on fire’.”
“The Karnataka High Court, in its recent verdict over the Mangaluru police firing row, slammed the state government and the police department. Anti-CAA protests were staged in all the districts of the state, peacefully. While everything was peaceful, why was there a need to clamp Section 144 in Mangaluru? Based on this, the High Court has overruled the decision of the government and the police of implementing prohibitory orders,” he added.
Congress leader and KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao reiterated what Siddaramaiah had said. To this, state law and parliamentary affairs minister J C Madhu Swamy, under Rule no 62 (7), argued before the House that a chargesheet was yet to be filed before the court and that the evidence of the incident would be produced during the investigation.
