Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde has dragged public discourse to a new low and targeted Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao referring to his Muslim wife.
Known for his ill-considered and provocative remarks, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister was recently in the news for his inflammatory comments at an event at Karnataka’s Kodagu district where he had declared that ‘‘if a Hindu girl is touched by a hand, then that hand should not exist.’’ At the same gathering in front of a large crowd on Sunday, the minister said that the Taj Mahal was ‘not built by Muslims’ – it was ‘Shiv mandir built by King Paramatheertha’.
Referring to Shah Jahan’s autobiography, Hegde said that the book states that the Mughal emperor ‘bought the palace’ from King Jayasimha. He added that if ‘we keep sleeping… our houses will be named manzil… Lord Ram will be called Jahapana and Sita will become bibi.”
Reacting to this, the Karnataka Congress president tweeted that such comments were ‘deplorable’ and questioned his contribution to Karnataka’s development. Unleashing a vicious attack, the BJP Union minister then tweeted that Dinesh Gundu Rao was a ‘guy who ran after a Muslim woman’ with no other achievements to speak of. Gundu Rao tweeted back saying that by bringing in ‘personal issues’, the Union minister had betrayed his ‘lack of culture’.
Anantkumar Hegde has remained the source of many controversial statements from since before 2017 when he joined the Central government. On the Sabarimala issue, he recently remarked that the handling of the issue by the Kerala government could be likened to ‘daylight rape’ of Hindus.
Hedge had even suggested in an earlier occasion that the word ‘secular’ be removed from the Indian Constitution, leading to widespread protests.
