Now ‘phone tapping’ of seer becomes talking point in Karnataka
The Hindu
Agriculture Minister accuses former Chief Minister of phone tapping, sparking political tensions between Congress and BJP-JD(S) alliance.
Agriculture Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy’s statement that JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, when he was Chief Minister, was responsible for phone tapping of Vokkaliga seer Nirmalananda Swami, head of Adichunchanagiri mutt, has added more fuel to the war of words between the Congress and the BJP-JD(S) alliance partners.
Sparks have been flying between the two ever since 14 contestants of the BJP-JD(S) alliance visited the seer with prominent Vokkaliga leaders. Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar responded to it by stating that it was the BJP that had brought down the “Vokkaliga government”, referring to the Congress-JD(S) government led by Mr. Kumaraswamy that was brought down by engineered defections to the BJP in 2019.
The BJP shot back by saying that the Congress too was part of the government back then and the Home Minister was a Congress leader. Mr. Shivakumar, responding to Mr. Cheluvarayaswamy’s statement, said: “There is proof about that, but I do not wish to talk about it now.”
Political economist Parakala Prabhakar has described the exit poll results as “fudged figures”, saying that those would benefit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) only. “False predictions were given with the sole objective of helping the NDA in rigging during the counting,” alleged Mr. Prabhakar, after releasing a book titled ‘Avineeti Chakravarthi Narendra Modi’ penned by former Minister Vadde Shobanadreeswara Rao, here, on June 2 (Sunday).