Congman's ‘shoot & kill Modi’ video goes viral

Congress leader Belur Gopalakrishna has courted controversy after a video of his saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be shot dead went viral Tuesday.

The month-old video showing a portion of Gopalakrishna’s speech at an event organised by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee was circulated on social media, with the BJP demanding legal action against him for “instigating the assassination” of the prime minister.

The saffron party is likely to file a formal police complaint against him on Wednesday.

“Those who speak for Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi, should not be in this country, friends. If they (RSS) try to kill the country’s democracy, if you have the guts, you should shoot and kill your Modi. You won’t have to kill anybody else,” Gopalakrishna, who was earlier with the BJP, is heard saying in the video.

Gopalakrishna was speaking at an event the party had organised on February 4 to condemn a Hindu group that enacted Gandhi’s assassination.

In a tweet, BJP said Gopalakrishna posed “a national threat” and urged law enforcement authorities to take action. Many BJP leaders condemned Gopalakrishna remarks.

Gopalakrishna was with the BJP, before he joined Congress in April 2018, as he failed to get the saffron party’s ticket to contest from the Sagar Assembly constituency.

Gopalakrishna had contested on the BJP ticket and defeated his relative and Congress candidate Kagodu Thimmappa in 2004 and 2008. He unsuccessfully contested on the JD(S) ticket in 2013.