Case of BJP MLC C.T. Ravi handed over to CID: Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwar

The alleged derogatory remark was made by Mr. Ravi in the Upper House after the House was adjourned amidst din during the Winter session at Belagavi, but both the ruling party and opposition members had stayed in the House and were raising slogans.

Home Minister G. Parameshwar had ordered handing over the case of alleged derogatory remarks by MLC and former Minister C.T. Ravi against Karnataka’s Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar to the CID for inquiry.

Speaking to mediapersons at Hubballi airport on December 24, the Home Minister said that inquiry is under way.

Regarding Karnataka Legislative Council Chairperson Basavaraj Horatti’s statement that the whole incident was a ‘closed chapter’, and that there was no official recording of what transpired after the House was adjourned, Mr. Parameshwar said that the Chairman would do his job and the police would have to do their job properly.

The Chairperson would have to take into consideration several procedural aspects, take statements, consider pros and cons, and there might be some delay, as there were various procedural aspects involved, Mr. Parameshwara said in Hubballi. “But the truth has to be unravelled. That is why the case has been given to the CID. Now Mr. Ravi says that he has not made such a remark. But others who witnessed the incident say what transpired was totally different. So, CID inquiry has been ordered,” he said.

On allegation by BJP leaders that the police were taking orders from ‘someone else’, the Home Minister said that being a responsible department, the police took orders from either the Chief Minister or the Home Minister, and nobody else. “Now they are saying someone is interfering and issuing orders. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi has said I am an inefficient Home Minister. We don’t run the department based on their statements,” he said.

The alleged derogatory remark was made by Mr. Ravi in the Upper House after the House was adjourned amidst din during the Winter session at Belagavi, but both the ruling party and opposition members had stayed in the House and were raising slogans. Congress and BJP members were protesting and counter-protesting about the allegedly derogatory remarks made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah about B.R. Ambedkar in Parliament.

To another query, Mr. Parameshwar said that the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhiji presiding over the Congress convention in Belagavi would be a historic one with the whole of the Congress community participating in the event. All senior leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi, would be participating in the event, he said.