Congress lawmakers on Thursday launched an overnight protest inside the Karnataka Assembly and Legislative Council demanding the resignation of rural development minister K.S. Eshwarappa for saying the saffron flag would one day fly from the Red Fort instead of the Tricolour.
A day after ruling and Opposition members clashed in the Assembly over the controversial statement of Eshwarappa, leader of the Opposition P.C. Siddaramaiah on Thursday announced that all Congress lawmakers would spend the night in both Houses of the legislature and would continue until their demand was met.
“He (Eshwarappa) has committed treason. He insulted our national flag, which is the symbol of our pride and our nation’s sovereignty,” Siddaramaiah said.
Eshwarappa had said on February 9 while questioning the objections to Hindu students turning up in colleges wearing saffron scarves to counter those wearing the hijab: “Today or tomorrow (a figurative speech that essentially means in the future), the saffron flag (bhagwa) will fly atop the Red Fort when Hindu dharma reigns in this country. He had hastened to add: “Today our Tricolour is our national flag. There is no doubt about that.”
A day later, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had urged everyone to pipe down and not make any statements on the hijab row.
Bommai said on Thursday: “There is nothing illegal in what Eshwarappa has said. The Congress is doing all this since they have no issues to speak about.”
Sources said the BJP would take a call on adjourning the session sine die if the protest was not called off on Friday. The session is scheduled to conclude on February 25.
The last time the Assembly witnessed a sleepover protest was in July 2019 when the BJP, led by B.S. Yediyurappa, spent overnight against the delay in then chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy taking a trust vote in the wake of defections from the ruling Janata Dal Secular-Congress alliance.
While the Congress lawmakers had protested overnight in the Assembly in 2010 over the illegal mining scam during the BJP regime headed by Yediyurappa, in 1996 it was the BJP that did a similar protest against the steep hike in power tariffs during the tenure of then chief minister J.H. Patel of the Janata Dal (Secular).
