BJP leader C.T. Ravi (centre) addressing a press conference in Mangaluru on September 16, 2023.
| Photo Credit: ANIL KUMAR SASTRY
Senior BJP leader C.T. Ravi on September 16 dared Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to prove his charge that ‘forces were trying to bring back Manusmrithi’ in India, failing which the police should book him for false and misleading statements under his own fact-checking initiative.
Mr. Ravi told reporters in Mangaluru that no political party has announced that they will enforce Manusmrithi. No royal family that ruled India in the last 2,000 years had adopted the smrithi as its constitution. Mr. Siddaramaiah made a ‘false and baseless’ charge while addressing the audience at the International Day of Democracy celebrations at the Vidhana Soudha on September 15, he said.
Despite being a senior leader, Mr. Siddaramaiah has the habit of ‘peddling lies’, including that the RSS was behind Mahatma Gandhi’s murder. This is despite three probe commissions set up by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru absolving the RSS of any role in the murder.
Therefore, he should set his own example by undergoing a probe as envisaged by his cabinet colleague Priyank Kharge, ‘who has taken General Power of Attorney of all departments, including the Home Department’, Mr. Ravi said. Otherwise, Mr. Siddaramaiah should corroborate his charge through documentary evidence, he said.
If at all the Constitution had been ‘meddled with’, if at all personal liberty was at stake, they were all done by the Congress, he claimed. The imposition of Emergency was an instance of infringing constitutional guarantees, Mr. Ravi said.
Through its fact-checking initiative, the Congress is trying to control the media, thereby imposing Emergency through the back door, he alleged. In fact, the Congress has been intolerant towards democratic principles as boycotting 14 journalists’ panel discussions by the INDIA alliance shows the intolerance of the alliance, he claimed.