HDK targets BJP over communal clashes in the state

Former chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy on Wednesday said that the rising instances of communal clashes in Karnataka are the “beginning of the end of Karnataka’s peaceful situation”.

“This is the beginning of the downfall of Karnataka’s peaceful situation. This is the beginning. I already predicted this kind of activities three months back,” Kumaraswamy said on Wednesday in Bengaluru.

The statements come a day after Muslim shopkeepers were banned from setting up shops at popular Hindu religious fairs in several districts.

Kumaraswamy said that he had predicted that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would bring up such “emotional issues”, which they used in the northern part of India and successfully contested the elections earlier this year.

He added that this situation is being forced on the minds of people.

The former chief minister invoked Rashtrakavi Kuvempu’s popular poem “Sarava Janangada Shanthiya Thota” (about Karnataka, which translates to the peaceful garden for people of all faiths), stating that the BJP was attacking this very characteristic of the state.

“From today onwards, they (BJP) may damage that word (peace). That peaceful state is going to be changed differently because of these activities,” Kumaraswamy said.