Several posters asking Congress workers to stay away while campaigning in Karnataka’s Bantwal Assembly constituency have been stuck to the walls of houses in Kanyana village near Vittla.
According to The New Indian Express, the posters written in Kannada read: “This is a Hindu house. Congresspeople, who supported the conversion of Ganyashri through deceitful love, are not allowed here. Even our house has girl children.”
The report states that the posters have come up on the walls of about 20 houses in the area.
"They have decided to teach the Congress a fitting lesson for its minority appeasement at the expense of the interests of Hindus," a Bantwal local told The New Indian Express.
According to the report, Ganyashri, a 21-year old Hindu girl, had allegedly eloped with a “non-Hindu” boy in November 2016. The girl’s family had also filed a missing person’s report with the Vittla police.
However, once news of the elopement reached the neighbourhood, it became a matter of great embarrassment for the family, since they had already fixed her engagement with someone else.
The villagers, who suspected the role of some Congress leaders behind the incident, were waiting for an opportunity and have hence launched this campaign now.A resident told The New Indian Express
The report further states that the Dakshina Kannada District Congress Committee President Harish Kumar believes that the BJP is responsible for the posters.
The reason, he alleges, is because the BJP is famous for dividing the public on religious lines, especially in terms of securing electoral gains.
Referring to the incident where similar posters banning the BJP had come up in different parts of Kerala after the Kathua and Unnao rape cases, Kumar alleged that the BJP’s influence behind the ones in Bantwal is a strategy to distract voters from crucial issues.
(With inputs from The New Indian Express.)
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