Tipu Sultan Jayanti has proven to be even more of a black day for the Congress than for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
BJP leaders are demanding Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education minister Tanveer Sait’s resignation after he was caught viewing what looked like pornographic pictures on his phone on Thursday.
According to TV9 Kannada news channel report, Sait, who was attending the Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebration at Raichur, was seen scrolling down some images on his phone.
Some pictures of semi-nude and skimpily clad women reportedly came up in the same thread. TV 9 has been beaming these pictures continuously, but since they are blurred, one cannot make out the exact nature of the pictures.
Tanveer Sait told the media that he was looking at Tipu pictures on his phone when these pictures came up on a Whatsapp group.
BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa tweeted, "Karnataka's Edu Minister Sh.Tanveer Sait should be sacked immediately who was caught on camera watching pictures which were allegedly porn."
BJP MLA, Prahlad Joshi said that the party would protest if Congress does not sack him from the ministerial post immediately.
The Congress ironically finds itself in the same predicament that the BJP was in a few years ago.
In February 2012, two BJP ministers Lakshman Savadi, and C. C. Patil were caught watching pornographic clips inside the Karnataka assembly even as the session was on. The two ministers as well as J Krishna Palemar, who reportedly forwarded the obscene clip to them, resigned from their ministerial posts.
All the three were also barred from attending Legislative Assembly meetings.
In fact, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was then the leader of the opposition in 2012, had pointed out that the ministers had violated Section 292 and 293 of the IPC that bans public viewing of pornographic films.
He had said, "We are examining whether we can file a criminal case against them, as the legislature is a protected area. They will face up to five years in prison and a fine of over Rs 1 lakh. It is a black day for us and the BJP has been stripped off everything by this act,'' he said.
If one had to go by the statement Siddaramaiah made on the BJP in 2012, it looks like Congress has been stripped off everything by this act.