'Pimp' remark: Two senior state BJP leaders slug it out

In an ugly duel, Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani said his party colleague Basanagouda Patil Yatnal's "tongue will be be cut" after the Bijapur City MLA used a vulgar word on him.

On Friday, Yatnal called Nirani "a pimp" during a Panchamasali Lingayat rally in Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai's Shiggaon constituency.

Nirani and Yatnal, both Panchamasalis and potential chief ministerial candidates, have been at loggerheads over their community's reservation demand.

"There is one fellow from Bijapur...he has a tongue like no one else. BJP and Parivar seniors have taught us a culture on how one should speak. The way [Yatnal] is letting his tongue loose...no legitimate son will speak like this. He must have been a pimp himself. Such words cannot come from a cultured person. If he continues speaking this way, his tongue will be cut," Nirani said.

Yatnal, a rabble-rouser who had publicly said B S Yediyurappa will be removed as chief minister, is breathing down Bommai's neck to increase reservation for the Panchamasalis, a numerically-strong sub-sect of the dominant Lingayat community.

Yatnal, a former Union minister, has accused Nirani of stonewalling the community's demand to be put under Category 2A of backward classes where they will get a share in 15 per cent reservation from their current Category 3B that has 4 per cent.

"There's one pimp minister...I don't do dirty work like you. I don't blackmail seers. Pimping is his business. If you listen to him, then you will go home like Yediyurappa," Yatnal told Bommai, referring to Nirani without naming him. Attacking Bommai, Yatnal accused him of sitting on the Panchamasalis' demand for reservation. "There is probably no chief minister who uses special flights like (Bommai) does. He wants a flight for everything. That's all he does."

Bommai denounced Yatnal for making personal attacks. "In politics and public life, we have a mandate. Everyone knows who is what. We should ask ourselves, is it right to make personal attacks? Personal attacks aren't a part of Karnataka's political culture," he said.

Asked why the BJP is not acting against Yatnal, Bommai said: "Party is observing everything. They will take the right decision."