Worshipping Godse is biggest treason: Siddaramaiah

Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Saturday said worshipping Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse was “the biggest act of treason” even as he mounted an attack on the BJP-RSS combine.

“Today, Nathuram Godse is being worshipped. Nothing else qualifies to be the biggest act of treason. Those who build a statue of Gandhi’s killer and worship cannot be desh bhakts,” Siddaramaiah said on the occasion of martyr’s day to mark Gandhi’s assassination.

“Was there a single RSS-BJP leader who got killed in the freedom struggle? We are having to take lessons on patriotism from them. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi died for the country. What’s their (BJP-RSS) contribution?” he said.

The Congress leader gave a clarion call to party workers, asking them to be ready to wage the ‘second freedom struggle’ against the BJP. “The longer they are in power, India can’t live in harmony and unity. We need to understand this,” he said. “No one is living peacefully today - labourers, farmers, women, children...they’re creating such an atmosphere with laws that are anti-labour, anti-farmer and that seek to destroy harmony,” he said.

“Only the Congress can remove the BJP. No other party can do this. So, it’s our duty and responsibility,” he said.

Veteran Congressman Mallikarjun Kharge accused the BJP of using Mahatma Gandhi’s name only for votes. “Maybe Goebbels has blessed them and they have Hitler’s blood. How can their party and the RSS even think of killing Gandhi? Can they really take the nation on Gandhi’s footsteps,” he asked.

Siddaramaiah also visited Freedom Park in solidarity with farmer leaders who are staging a satyagraha. “Farmers have been agitating for the past two months, but PM Modi is acting as though nothing is wrong,” he said. “They got the President to say in his speech that the new farm laws are pro-farmer. They made the President lie.”