New Delhi: Congress leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah courted controversy after he compared Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to “hound dogs”, news agency ANI reported. Speaking at an event in Mysore on Wednesday, he said, “When I talk individually, 25 people from BJP start barking against me like Mudhol (hound) dogs. But when they bark, only I have to speak, no one else from our party speaks.”
According to the report, his statement comes in the wake of a row in the southern state over ‘saffronisation’ of textbooks, where some sections of people have been allegedly objecting to replacing a chapter on Bhagat Singh in the revised Kannada book for Class 10 with an essay on a speech by RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.
“Our people don’t talk, and that’s why we have distributed books from our office,” ANI quoted the leader as saying.
Siddaramaiah also took part in a protest by the Karnataka Congress at the Vidhan Soudha against the textbook ‘saffronisation’.
“The textbook has been revised by Rohith Chakrathirtha (head of the textbook revision committee), who is an orthodox RSS man. I hope the government will consider revising it, if not, we will go to the streets,” he said in Bengaluru on Thursday.
It is to be noted that the term Mudhol Hound, also known as Caravan Hound, is commonly used by the villagers in Karnataka for hunting and as guard dogs.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has made it clear that the Karnataka government will not remove the chapter on Hedgewar. However, the government is open to suggestions on issues related to textbooks, he said.