Bengaluru: As election day nears in Karnataka, principal contenders Congress and BJP are going harder at each other, with charges flying thick and fast.
In the latest attack, Congress on Saturday accused BJP of hatching a conspiracy to eliminate party president Mallikarjun Kharge and his family.
The party’s general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “blue-eyed boy” of conspiring against Kharge.
Surjewala, at a press conference here four days ahead of election in the southern state, played an audio recording in which BJP’s candidate from Chittapur constituency Manikanta Rathod is allegedly heard saying that he will wipe out Kharge, his wife and children.
“Intimidated by the all-round blessings of Kannadigas being showered on the Congress party and facing a complete rout in the ensuing Karnataka election, the BJP leaders are now hatching a plot to murder Mallikarjun Kharge and also his family members,” Surjewala alleged.
Claiming that Rathod was a “blue-eyed boy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai”, the Congress leader said it was the “lowest political discourse anyone can stoop to as assassination plots have entered the electoral discourse of Karnataka.”
Surjewala said the prime minister will remain mute, as will Karnataka police and Election Commission of India.
“But people of Karnataka will not remain mute and will give a befitting reply,” Surjewala added.
Even as CM Bommai promised an inquiry into the allegation, Rathod denied the charge and said that the audio was fake and fabricated by the Congress to malign him.
The 48-year-old Rathod has around 40 criminal cases registered against him with charges ranging from murder, smuggling drugs and narcotics, criminal intimidation and illegal possession of arms.
Last November, Rathod was arrested for allegedly threatening Kharge’s son Priyank – Congress’ candidate in Chittapur — with murder before being released on bail. At a news conference then, he had said he was prepared to gun down Priyank Kharge.
