The Congress government in Karnataka is unlikely to revive Tipu Jayanti which its previous dispensation had launched in 2015 but was discontinued by the subsequent BJP government three years later, apparently to avoid any controversies ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The government has so far not listed Tipu Jayanti as an official state-sponsored event. It was the then Congress government helmed by Siddaramaiah that had begun observing November 10 as Tipu Jayanti, the birth anniversary of the 18th-century ruler of Mysore whom the Right wing describes as a “tyrant”.

Minority welfare minister Zameer Ahmed Khan told reporters on Friday that the people were free to celebrate as they wish. “No government department will organise it this time. But the people can celebrate.”

Government sources said chief minister Siddaramaiah too had reconciled to the fact that it would be better not to give a handle to the BJP with the Lok Sabha elections just months away.

It was the then Siddaramiah-helmed Congress government that had observed the first ever state-sponsored Tipu Jayanti on November 10, 2015, amid raucous opposition from the BJP and its Sangh parivar allies.

A Vishwa Hindu Parishad functionary, Kuttappa, had died when groups supporting and opposing the Tipu Jayanti celebrations clashed in Kodagu district as the state marked the 266th birth anniversary of the ruler of Mysore, popularly known as the Tiger of Mysore, who died fighting the British in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.

While Siddaramaiah’s government continued with the Tipu Jayanti celebrations for the next two years, H.D. Kumaraswamy, who helmed the Janata Dal Secular-Congress coalition after the 2018 state polls, stayed away from the celebrations citing ill health.

The BJP, which came to power in 2019 by engineering defections from the ruling coalition, scrapped the official celebrations from that year.

A Congress functionary who declined to be named told this newspaper that one section within the party had aired its views against providing any leverage to the BJP with the Lok Sabha polls in sight. “This time the government is unlikely to celebrate Tipu Jayanti since many leaders are against giving a handle to the BJP, which will use it to the hilt,” he said.

Syed Saifullah, who recently resigned from the JDS over the party’s decision to join hands with the BJP, said those like him would continue to celebrate Tipu’s birthday. “We have always celebrated November 10 as Tipu’s birth anniversary and will continue to do so. Our celebrations never had anything to do with the party in power, but instead was a reflection of the common people’s respect and admiration for Tipu Sultan,” he told this newspaper.

Tipu has been a polarising figure in the state. While one section, including Hindus in the Old Mysore area, celebrates Tipu for his valour and efficient administration, the Sangh parivar and its sympathisers describe him as a tyrant who killed Hindus and Christians who refused to convert to Islam.

Even some Christians in coastal Karnataka had objected to Tipu Jayanti when it was first announced in 2015, citing how their forefathers had suffered at the hands of the army of the then ruler.