Minister of State for Skill Development Anant Kumar Hegde is facing an FIR for allegedly calling Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah a ‘bootlicker’ during a Parivartana Yatra rally in Belagavi.
The FIR was registered in Mysuru on Wednesday, after the City Magistrate Court ordered the police to take up the complaint given by Congress workers.
According to the complaint given by District Congress President BJ Vijayakumar, Hegde had allegedly said, “For vote and seat, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will even lick others’ boots”.
“We have filed a complaint after Hegde called Siddaramaiah a bootlicker in a speech in Belagavi. Even before that, he had made controversial statements in Kundapur comparing Tipu Sultan to Kasab. We have filed a case under Sections 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups) and 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the IPC.”
Though the Congress workers had attempted to file a complaint against Hegde soon after he made the statement on November 18, the Mysuru police had earlier refused to receive it on the grounds that the speech was not made within their jurisdiction. The workers then moved the Magritrate Court, which directed the Mysuru police to file an FIR.
While the FIR has been filed at the Devaraja Police Station in Mysuru, the police are planning to approach the court to transfer the case to Belagavi.
Hegde, who has been part of the contingent of leaders leading the BJP’s state-wide Parivartana Yatra, is no stranger to controversy. In an earlier speech in the Parivartana Yatra in Kundapur, the BJP leader had sarcastically suggested that the Congress government will soon start celebrating terrorists like Ajmal Kasab and Osama Bin Laden. “Today, they will celebrate Tipu Jayanti, then Hyder Ali, then Afzal Guru, Ajmal Kasab and Bin Laden,” he had said on November 13.
In 2016, Hegde had reportedly told mediapersons that there will be terrorism in the world as long as Islam exists. “Until we eradicate Islam from the world we will not be able to eliminate terrorism from the world. Islam is a bomb placed to disrupt world peace. As long as there is Islam there will be no peace in the world,” he was quoted as saying.