Anantkumar Hegde is no new to controversies: Here is why

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“There is a new culture now of secularists. If someone says I am a Muslim, or I am a Christian, or I am a Lingayat, or I am a Hindu, I feel very happy because he knows his roots. But these people who call themselves secularists, are like people without parentage or who don’t know their bloodline. They don’t know their parents, but they call themselves secular,” he said.

The most recent of his remarks can be traced back to as early as the beginning of this month, when he called Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah a “boot licker”. The Mysore Congress workers moved the city court, which directed the police to take up necessary actions. Earlier this year too, he had directed a stinging attack on Siddaramaiah following reports of local youths joining the Islamic State in Syria. “Karnataka is becoming a home for terrorists. I won’t be shocked if CM Siddaramaiah will go ahead and carry out Kasab Jayanti in the future,” the Minister had said.

On January 2, a video went viral, showing Hegde, a black belt Tae Kwon Do, assaulting doctors at a private hospital in his hometown of Sirsi for not treating his mother who had been admitted with a broken leg. He was seen striking a doctor, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against a wall. Though the doctors and the hospital authorities refused to file a complaint against Hegde, the police registered a suo motu case against him on January 5, on the basis of CCTV footage from the hospital showing the assault, which was aired on news channels.

Hegde is also an accused in a hate speech case, under Section 295 A of the IPC, for allegedly making inflammatory statements about Islam at a press conference in Sirsi town on February 28, 2016. Responding to a question on a number of Muslim youths from Bhatkal town in his constituency being arrested on terrorism charges, Hegde was reported to have said, “As long as there is Islam in this world, there will be terrorism. Until we eradicate Islam from the world, we will not be able to eliminate terrorism from the world.” He also allegedly called Islam a “ticking bomb”.

Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Hegde alleged that Congress leader R V Deshpande, whose son Prashant was pitted against him, had sheltered Indian Mujahideen terrorists like Riyaz Bhatkal and Yasin Bhatkal in Bhatkal. Hegde was elected to the Lok Sabha for a fifth consecutive term.

A few years ago, he commissioned a documentary about himself, titled “The Real Hindu”, to spread his own legend, in which one of his achievements is listed as the “ghar wapsi” of 300 Christian converts. He faced his first case of rioting, unlawful assembly and promoting enmity in 1993 during the Babri Masjid demolition when he was allegedly part of a rioting mob in Bhatkal. In 1994, he caught the attention of RSS by dodging prohibitory orders in Hubli, north Karnataka and raised the Tricolour flag at disputed Idgah Maidan on Independence Day.