BJP worships Godse, Savarkar, says Siddu

The former CM was responding to Shah’s repeated attacks on Congress for honouring 18th century Mysore sultan Tipu Sultan. He is regarded by many, including those in the grand old party, as a freedom fighter

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the Assembly Siddaramaiah on Sunday hit back against Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s jibe that Congress were believers in Tipu Sultan by branding the BJP worshippers of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse and Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar.

The former chief minister was responding to Shah’s repeated attacks on Congress for honouring 18th century Mysore sultan Tipu Sultan. He is regarded by many, including those in the grand old party, as a freedom fighter who stood against British colonialists militarily.

Others with right wing leanings believe the monarch to have been “anti-Hindu”. This isn’t the first time Shah has asked crowds in poll-bound Karnataka to choose between “those who honour Tipu and those who built Ram Mandir.”

Siddaramaiah once again made it clear that he wasn’t afraid of turning the electoral campaign into a fight between cults of personalities with the Congress satrap on the one hand and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah on the other. “What will those who worship Godse teach us? What will those who worship Savarkar teach us? What must we do with those who have devoted themselves to the man who killed Gandhi? They revere Savarkar, who used to receive a pension from the British,” he said.

Siddaramaiah maintained that he and the Congress party respected all freedom fighters, including Tipu Sultan, Kittur Rani Channamma, Sangoli Rayanna, Abbakka and the erstwhile queen of Jhansi Rani Lakshmi Bai, adding that the BJP hadn’t honoured Karnataka’s freedom fighters. Amit Shah has been known to make speeches appealing to majoritarian communal sentiment, especially in election campaigns.

During the campaign leading up to elections in Gujarat, in November, the home minister had referred to the pogroms of 2002 in the western state as something that had “taught such a lesson (to certain people) that the state had been peaceful for 22 years.” By some estimates, over 2,000 people, mostly from a minority community, had died in the massacres.