Show some maturity, please

The ministers in Karnataka’s BJP government speak like Sangh Parivar leaders

The sordid drama enacted to effect the arrest of Bajrang Dal leader Mahendra Kumar is nothing but the result of a last-ditch effort by the Yeddyurappa ministry to save itself from the central government’s ire.

The arrest seemed to be part of a script hammered out inside the portals of the BJP government when it was called on the carpet by the centre over its terrible failure to crack down on fanatics who went on a church-attacking spree at various parts of the state.

Law and order came for a toss in Dakshina Karnataka where Bajrang Dal activists (as admitted openly by none other than its leader Mahendra Kumar) with the tacit support of the state machinery attacked religious places.

From the very beginning of the violence, chief minister Yeddyurappa was talking more like a Sangh Parivar leader rather than an elected representative of the people. He countered the charges against Bajrang Dal with the conversion theory, as if all the attacks were mounted on mass conversion ceremonies. In the first place, he ought to have shown the basic responsibility in his capacity as the chief minister: to nab the culprits and arrest the situation from spiraling out of control.

His cabinet colleagues weren’t better. Their utterances were at best puerile, at worst ridiculous. While home minister V S Acharya was seen defending Bajrang Dal, energy minister K S Eswarappa went to the extent of attributing the attacks on churches to the poojas and homas done by JD (S)! He even advised the JD (S) leaders to do poojas for the welfare of the state, rather than for instigating violence.

Pathetic indeed. Anyone with a modicum of rudimentary common sense and rational thinking wouldn’t dare to utter this type of hogwash. Oh come all ye ministers, you’ve got at least to show to the world that you are ministers and no more Sangh Parivar leaders .