Bengaluru: With days to go for the Karnataka elections, it seems that the political slugfest is only getting intense. And now it threatens to spill over to legal domain. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has sent a legal notice to PM Modi over his ‘Sidda-Rupaiya’ jibe during election rallies in the state. Along with PM Modi, he has sent defamation notice to BJP President Amit Shah and BJP Karnataka CM candidate BS Yeddyurappa.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been in Modi’s line of fire, with the prime minister calling his government “sidda rupaiya sarkar” (government that takes bribe). “Money is bad,” he noted, recalling what saint poet Shishunala Sharifa once said. But for Karnataka’s Congress government, it is “Baap bada na bhaiya, sab se bada rupaiya(when it comes to money not even your relations are important).”
“Your Chief Minister has changed the saying itself… Baap bhi bada, bhaiya bhi bada aur us se bhi upar rupiya; seeda seeda rupaiya (Relations are important and money is even more important),” Modi said.
Earlier, addressing a BJP rally in Mysuru, Modi said after he levelled the “10% commission” charge against the Siddaramaiah dispensation recently, he received many calls, with people disputing his information about the cut it received, and claiming it was much more. “I can understand the anger of the people of Karnataka,” he said, and asked the gathering whether the state wanted a “commission or a mission government.” Karnataka, he insisted, wanted a “mission government” and not a “commission government.”
Similar allegations have been levelled by Amit Shah and Yeddyurappa too. Reacting to these allegations, Siddaramaiah has sent legal notice saying BJP leaders would be sued for civil and criminal defamation if they fail to apologise.