BJP, Congress Skirt Role played by MES, SENA

Parties blame police mismanagement for Belagavi violence.

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru Eyeing the Marathi linguistic minority votes in Belagavi district, the ruling BJP and Opposition Congress legislators are not ready to blame either Shiv Sena or Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti for incidents of violence in Belagavi City on Friday night.

While BJP MLAs, Anil Benake and Abay Patil have given a clean chit to the MES and Sena and held the Belagavi Police responsible for the incidents of violence.

Playing safe, KPCC President D.K. Shivakumar told the media in Doddaballapur that he cannot hold the MES responsible for vandalizing Sangolli Rayanna statue and setting fire to a few police vehicles without an impartial probe.

This has exposed the hollowness of lawmakers of Belagavi who were not ready to condemn the act of miscreants taking law into their hands. The Congress MLAs who harp on the ruling BJP for everything, have kept their mouth shut on this ‘uncalled’ violence in Belagavi city.

Be it BJP or Congress, all the political parties are dependent on the Marathi votes which are sizeable not only in Belagavi City, but also in Khanapur, Athani, Chikodi, Hukkeri, Raibag and Ramdurg, since the district shares the border with Maharashtra.

For this reason, no politician was ready to antagonize the Marathi speaking populace and support the acts of vandalism by the miscreants.

According to TV reports, former deputy chief minister and BJP MLC, Lakshman Savadi was not picking the call to share his comments on the Belgavi violence allegedly engineered by the MES activists.

Police vehicles targeted

The MES and Shiv Sena activists pelted stones at the police vehicles carrying the personnel to Kolhapur in Maharashtra for having the darshan of Goddess Mahalakshmi. It has been common for Karnataka officials to visit this historic temple in Kolhapur while on duty at Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi for the winter session. In the wake of alleged blackening of Chatrapati Shivaji’s statue at Sankey tank in Bengaluru, MES and Shiv Sena activists targeted the Karnataka registration vehicles, including the police vehicles, which had come to Kolhapur.

Taking note of the situation, the Maharashtra Police have provided security to Karnataka registration vehicles up to the border. Similarly, the Karnataka Police were also escorting the Maharashtra registration vehicles till the border.

Security beefed up

Meanwhile, the Karnataka Police have intensified the checking on Karnataka- Maharashtra border to prevent the entry of MES or Shiv Sena activists into the State. Additional staff has been deployed on the border and metal barricades have been put up to check every vehicle entering the State