‘Are you with terrorists or patriots?’ Basavaraj Bommai asks Congress

When terrorists were hanged by the President, Congress criticised it, Bommai said

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has asked Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge to clarify his party’s stand on terrorism.

“I want to ask Congress - Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi - are you in favour of terrorists? Or, are you with patriots?” Bommai said, a day after Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar seemingly suggested that the Mangaluru cooker blast was orchestrated by the BJP government to divert attention away from the votegate scandal.

At an interaction with reporters on Thursday, Shivakumar was referring to the November 19 cooker blast in Mangaluru when he said: “Who asked the director-general of police to declare that it was a terrorist act without investigation? Who is the terrorist? Was it an act of terrorism like in Mumbai, Delhi, Kashmir or Pulwama?”

Shivakumar’s statement created a furore with the BJP pouncing on him.

“This has been Congress’ policy - to support terrorists. When terrorists were hanged by the President, they criticised it. This is nothing but appeasement. It's an old trick to garner minority votes,” Bommai said, slamming Shivakumar.

“Clearly, one person had everything required to make a bomb inside a cooker, which exploded. It was clear that the man had the intent to cause a blast in Mangaluru. He had changed his identity multiple times. He was caught 2-3 times in earlier cases. It was established that he had known terror links, including overseas,” Bommai explained.

“This being the case, for Shivakumar to say that it was a cover-up, doesn’t befit his position,” Bommai said. “To crush the morale of the police, especially when a terrorist is caught with evidence, isn’t something a patriot would do,” he said.

Votegate: Congress gave orders, says CM

Reacting to Shivakumar’s claim that the Mangaluru cooker blast was used by the BJP to divert attention away from the votegate scandal, Bommai said it was the Congress government that gave orders to nonprofit Chilume Trust in 2017. “Shivakumar shouldn’t forget this,” he said.

“Congress has the habit of creating illegal votes. We’ll know clearly this time how many outsiders are there in which constituency. That’s because the Election Commission is using new technology to identify double and triple votes,” Bommai said. “We’re investigating and have made arrests in the (Chilume) case,” he added.