Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge speaking at the Muslim Youth League state rally in Kochi on Sunday. Image: X/@PriyankKharge
Bengaluru: Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge has alleged that people associated with the Sangh were responsible for the killings of journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalists M.M. Kalburgi and Narendra Dabholkar, and pledged to put those responsible behind bars within six months.
Speaking at the Indian Union Muslim League’s Muslim Youth League state rally in Kochi on Sunday evening, Kharge referred to the three killings mentioned by an earlier speaker. Saying the case was ongoing, he declared: “Another six months, I will finish it and I will put all these people in jail.”
Kharge said the government was following up on the matter and would pursue action. His remarks included an allegation linking the Sangh to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination: “We will do it because these are the people who are responsible for killing Gandhi.”
In the same passage, Kharge said the RSS considered Savarkar the father of Hindutva. He then referred to Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh and Dabholkar before alleging that Sangh-linked people had killed them.
In his own account of the rally, Kharge said he had addressed what he described as the BJP’s politics of hatred and division. He urged young people to study the RSS’s history to understand the organisation’s ideology and positions.
He cited its absence from the Quit India Movement, opposition to the Tricolour and what he described as its historical hostility towards the Constitution. Young Indians should understand that history, he said.
Emphasising justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, Kharge described secularism as central to the Republic. He credited Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar with providing the country its strongest safeguard against arbitrary power through the Constitution.
Kharge called on young people to lead efforts to defend these constitutional values. He also expressed confidence that Kerala’s United Democratic Front would continue to uphold them.
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