A ‘chaddi’ war has erupted in Karnataka between the Congress and the BJP and now has snowballed into RSS workers sending khaki shorts, synonymous with the RSS, to former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s home. It all began with members of the National Students' Union of India, the Congress’s youth wing, burning khaki shorts in front of the residence of Education Minister BC Nagesh to protest against the revision of syllabus for school students.
The protesters from the NSUI, entered the premises of Nagesh's house, raised slogans and set fire to a pair of 'khaki shorts', an earlier uniform of the RSS, state Home Minister Araga Jnanendra had said. The ruling BJP had strongly condemned the incident and arrested around 22 persons in this connection.
BJP workers had alleged in their complaint that the protesters were ‘trying to burn down’ the minister’s home. After this, Siddaramaiah addressed a press conference condemning the arrests, saying that all the NSUI members did was set fire to a pair of shorts in the presence of police. He then mockingly said that if the BJP keeps arresting protesters then the Congress will have to launch a statewide campaign to burn shorts.
Siddaramaiah said, “If you don’t take action against those who filed a false complaint, then we’ll need to start burning chaddis around the state.” Though it seems to have been said in jest, Congress workers in Karnataka began to burn khaki shorts in multiple areas in Karnataka, slamming the ruling BJP for ‘bending’ before the RSS in its policies and programmes.
The BJP hit back, with Union Minister Pralhad Joshi saying that the Congress is burning ‘chaddis’ (underwear/shorts) because they have been “stripped off their own chaddis” in states like Madhya Pradesh and Assam and their “chaddis have become loose” in states like Rajasthan. He also said that people have ‘stripped them’ and that “this is why Siddaramaiah is frustrated and is burning RSS chaddis.”
To counter the Congress's move to burn khaki shorts to show their opposition to saffronisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have now started collecting shorts and knickers from houses and sending them to the Congress headquarters in Bengaluru, to be handed over opposition leader Siddaramaiah.
RSS workers of KR Pet unit in Mandya district of Karnataka 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.