A new Twitter war has broken out between Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Amit Shah. During his speech at the Maharaja College Grounds in Mysuru on 25 January, the BJP chief accused the Siddaramaiah government of corruption. Shah had then tweeted:
In response, Siddaramaiah said that Amit Shah and BJP state chief BS Yeddyurappa were “jail birds”.
“Says an ex-jail bird who chose another former jail bird to be his party’s CM candidate for our Karnataka election. Can he present facts about the so called corruption charges against me or my Govt? Just telling lies won’t help. People will not believe his #jumlas,” Siddaramaiah tweeted.
In 2011, BS Yeddyurappa surrendered to the Special Lokayukta Court after Justice Santosh Hegde’s explosive report on illegal mining in Ballari. Yeddyurappa was sent to judicial custody and was sent to the Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara Central Prison.
Amit Shah was arrested in 2010 by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin fake counter case and sent to judicial custody. The Karnataka CM was alluding to both these arrests in his tweet.
Shah’s 45-minute speech at Mysuru came on a day when the state witnessed a bandh over the Mahadayi water sharing issue.
Farming community leaders, who have been protesting against the Goa government, said they were disappointed that Shah did not address the Mahadayi issue. The man who began the Mahadayi Agitation, Vijay Kulkarni, told TNM that Shah did not meet farmers when they had gone to submit a letter regarding the Mahadayi issue.
Not a single word about Mahadayi was spoken and Amit Shah is talking about corruption and the ruling government not caring about farmers. If he did, why did he not ask Prime Minister Modi to intervene? He is a very close aide of the PM. Everyone is just using our struggle to get votes.Vijay Kulkarni to TNM
“No one really cares about what happens to us. Obviously Amit Shah did not speak about Mahadayi issue. He instead must have thought – why should people of Mysuru care about Mahadayi. This is the condition we live in,” Kulkarni added.
The Confederation of Pro Kannada Organisations, which had called for the bandh, has now said that they will protest in New Delhi and ask the Prime Minister to intervene.
(The copy has been published in an arrangement with The News Minute)
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