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    For both Congress & BJP, Bengaluru riot accused is a hot potato

    Synopsis

    The ruling BJP and opposition Congress on Thursday sought to portray a young man, a prime accused behind the riot in Bengaluru two days earlier, as a member of the other party while denying any link with him.

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    Bengaluru: The ruling BJP and opposition Congress on Thursday sought to portray a young man, a prime accused behind the riot in Bengaluru two days earlier, as a member of the other party while denying any link with him. P Naveen, the youth whose social media post is alleged to have triggered the mob violence, is a nephew of Pulakeshinagar Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy. The opposition party, therefore, is putting desperate efforts to distance itself from him.

    The youth who posted the offensive content on Facebook is a Congress worker, deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan told the media on Thursday. “Naveen is not a BJP worker; he is part of the Congress, and (Congress state president) DK Shivakumar does not have full information,” Ashwath Narayan said, displaying a poster featuring Shivakumar and Naveen. The online post had angered sections of Muslims who took out a protest demonstration on Tuesday night, which soon degenerated into massive violence, leading to police firing and the death of at least three people.

    On Wednesday, Shivakumar held a media conference to project Naveen as a supporter of the BJP. It was the friction between the Congress and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) that triggered the violence, but the Congress is making the allegations against the BJP to cover it, the deputy chief minister said. A look at the Facebook posts of Naveen would convincingly show he was a Congress worker, he added. Meanwhile, opposition leader Siddaramaiah and state BJP president Nalinkumar Kateel got into a war of words over the issue.

    Kateel ridiculed the Congress party’s “predicament” in not wholeheartedly condemning the attack on the house of its own MLA, who is a member of the Dalit community. Kateel said the Congress was caught in a delicate situation. If it were to speak in favour of rioters, it would invite the wrath of Dalits and backward class voters. If it were to speak in support of its MLA, it would hurt the Muslim vote bank. So, the party has chosen to blame the police for riots, he said. Former chief minister Siddaramaiah took to a series of tweets to vent his ire on the BJP and Kateel. He asked Kateel why he was identifying Murthy as a Dalit and not as a Hindu, and asked him whether he was in favour of the Hindus or the Dalits.


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