Karnataka Assembly: Protests staged outside after V. D. Sarvakar’s portrait revealed

After V.D. Savarkar’s portrait was revealed inside the Karnataka Assembly Hall on Monday, Congress MLAs protested outside the building under the leadership of the opposition leader in that state, Siddaramaiah.

Today in the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi, the state assembly’s winter session officially began. Former chief minister and current leader of the opposition, Siddaramaiah, was one of the opposition leaders who organised a protest and sat on the steps outside the assembly to oppose the Basavaraj Bommai government’s decision to unveil a portrait of Veer Savarkar there.

Siddaramaiah, in a letter to the Speaker, requested the installation of portraits of personalities like Valmiki, Basavanna, Kanaka Dasa, BR Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and others.
Karnataka Congress chief and MLA DK Shivakumar accused the state government of attempting to disrupt assembly proceedings through such steps.

“They want that our assembly proceedings should not take place. They want it disrupted. They have brought this photo because we are going to raise a lot of corruption issues against them. They don’t have any development agenda,” Shivakumar stated.

Meanwhile, the BJP has hit out against the opposition protests. “There must be ideological differences, but Savarkar is a freedom fighter, then ask Siddaramaiah, whose poster must be put, of Dawood Ibrahim?,” Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said today in Delhi outside the Parliament.

During the 10-day Winter Session of the Karnataka Assembly, the border row with neighbouring Maharashtra is likely to be brought up.
Meanwhile, in Nagpur outside the assembly, the opposition Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) in Maharashtra chanted slogans targeting chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.