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Pro-Hindu outfits plan protest against Rai on Saturday

State BJP president B S Yeddyurappa will address the protest meet against Dakshina Kannada In-charge Minister B Ramanath Rai on June 24 at Bantwal, the latter’s Assembly constituency. 

But police are yet to issue the pre-requisite permission for the meeting, which has been organised by pro-Hindu outfits to protest the remarks made by the minister against RSS leader Dr Prabhakar Bhat Kalladka recently. 

Speaking to journalists, BJP district unit president Sanjeev Mathandoor said: “As the prohibitory orders under section 144 of the CrPC are in force till June 21, the protest meet has been organised on June 24. We will take permission from police for using loudspeakers and making other arrangements.” 

When journalists reminded Mathandoor about the BJP’s futile attempts to organise the protest meet on June 20 and 22, as the district administration extended the prohibitory orders, a BJP leader accompanying him said: “Wait and watch”.

Option to resign

Mathandoor promised to call off the protest meet if the minister resigned from the Cabinet and apologised. Besides, he demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the recent clash at Kalladka, the illegal sand mining and other events in the district. 

Questioning the minister’s attitude towards the Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police, Bhushan G Borase, and asking him to book Bhat in a criminal case, Mathandoor said: “Is Rai a judge or public prosecutor to ask the police officer to register the case under a particular IPC section (307)?” 

He said that being the local MLA, Rai should ensure the rule of law instead of taking the police officer to task “in front of his acolytes” and other people with “criminal background”. 

Mathandoor claimed that such “inflammatory remarks” by the minister would “embolden” the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) to “disturb the peace”. 

He recalled how Rai, while speaking in the Legislative Assembly, had blamed communal forces for the murder of Karopady Gram Panchayat vice president Abdul Jaleel Karopady. Police records, according to Mathandoor, state that the murder happened over personal reasons. 

The BJP functionary also objected to Rai’s remarks against the activists in the Nethravathi movement.