Congress leader and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has sparked a controversy by comparing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to dogs.
“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,” said Siddaramaiah, speaking at an event in Mysore on Wednesday. “Our people don’t talk, and that’s why we have distributed books from our office,” said Siddaramiah.
The former chief minister also participated in a protest by the Karnataka Congress at the Vidhan Soudha against the alleged “saffronisation” of textbooks in the state and that their protests would continue till the government rolled back the revised textbooks.
“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,” said Siddaramaiah in Bengaluru earlier today.
Mudhol Hound, also known as Caravan Hound, is commonly used by villagers in Karnataka for hunting and as guard dogs.
The Karnataka government textbook revision committee set up in 2020 headed by writer Rohith Chakrathirtha, recently revised social science textbooks from Classes 6 to 10 and Kannada language textbooks from Classes 1 to 10.
Siddaramiah on Thursday said that the party will take their protest to the streets if the Karnataka government does not roll back revised school textbooks, which he said has hurt the sentiments of Kannadigas.