Bengaluru: Amid the ongoing Chaddi row between the BJP and the Congress in Karnataka, Congress leader Siddaramaiah said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not a secular organization. "Has a Dalit, OBC or a member from minority communities ever become Sarsanghchalak?" asked the senior Congress leader rhetorically to further prove his point.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Education Minister BC Nagesh responded to Siddaramaiah's statement, alleging that the Congress party always wants to concentrate on Muslim votes. "They want to divert people from the main issue because of their defeat in the Assembly elections 2022, they don't know what to do," he said.
The row stems down to Monday when the RSS workers started collecting shorts and knickers from houses and sending them to the Congress headquarters in Bengaluru to be given to opposition leader Siddaramaiah. This campaign was a reaction to the opposition Congress's move to burn khaki shorts worn by RSS workers to show their opposition to saffronisation. The move has triggered public outrage in the state.
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RSS workers of K.R. Pet unit in Mandya district of Karnataka have sent a parcel containing shorts, condemning the call given by Siddaramaiah to burn khaki shorts all over the state. The RSS workers claimed that the opposition leader won't be able to burn the huge number of khaki shorts that will be sent to him. The workers went door to door in the villages and collected used shorts and knickers.
Later they packed hundreds of shorts and knickers into a box and parcelled it to the Bengaluru Congress office. Activists of the NSUI had burnt khaki shorts in front of the residence of Education Minister B.C. Nagesh to protest against the revision of syllabus for school students.
The ruling BJP had strongly condemned the incident and arrested 15 persons in this connection. Later, the Congress state unit began burning khaki shorts, slamming the ruling BJP for bending before the RSS in its policies and programmes. The campaign by the RSS is likely to be taken up by workers all over the state, according to sources. (with Agency inputs)
