‘Account Hacked’: Anantkumar Hegde Deletes Tweets Supporting Godse

He claimed his account was hacked and said “can be no sympathy or justification of Gandhi ji’s murder.”

A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bhopal candidate Pragya Thakur called Nathuram Godse a patriot, former Union minister from Karnataka Anantkumar Hegde tweeted in support of the murderer of the father of the nation on Friday, 17 May.

However, he later claimed his account was hacked and said “can be no sympathy or justification of Gandhi ji's murder.”

My account was hacked since yesterday. There is no question of justifying Gandhi ji's murder. There can be no sympathy or justification of Gandhi ji's murder. We all have full respect for Gandhi ji's contribution to the nation.

— Chowkidar Anantkumar Hegde (@AnantkumarH) May 17, 2019

One of the tweets posted earlier from his account read, “Time to assert and move away from being apologetic! If not now....When?”

This was preceded by another tweet, saying, “Am glad that 7 decades later today's generation debates in a changed perceptional environment and gives good scope for the condemned to be heard upon.”

Hegde said “My Twitter account has been breached twice in the past one week and certain tweets have been posted on my timeline which has been discarded and deleted. Regret the posts attributed to me,” he tweeted.

BJP Distanced Itself From Pragya’s Godse Remark

On Thursday, Pragya Thakur, who is an accused in the Malegaon blast case, had kicked off another controversy by calling Nathuram Godse a patriot. “Nathuram Godse was a ‘deshbhakt’, is a ‘deshbhakt’ and will remain a ‘deshbhakt’. People calling him a terrorist should instead look within, such people will be given a befitting reply in these elections,” she said.

Soon after the BJP distanced itself from the statement. “BJP does not agree with this statement, we condemn it. Party will ask her for clarification, she should apologise publicly for this statement,” said party spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao.

Anantkumar Hegde’s tweets came after the Pragya Thakur has already apologised her statement. Hegde, who was a minister in the previous NDA government, is also the BJP’s candidate from Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka.

Although known as a firebrand, right-wing leader of BJP, Hegde was removed from the list of star campaigners in the state by his party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.