Gauri Lankesh murder: Onus of punishing killers on state, says BJP

Read | At Press Club, vow not to be scared, silenced

Kumar’s ministerial colleague, Nitin Gadkari, rejected the opposition charge that people opposed to the BJP were being attacked. “The allegations are baseless and false. We have nothing to do with the Gauri Lankesh incident. The BJP, the Central government or any of our organisations have no relation to this incident… we condemn this,’’ Gadkari told journalists while responding to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s statement accusing the BJP of stifling dissent to impose “only one ideology’’.

Gadkari decried Rahul’s criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “skilled Hindutva politician whose comments had one meaning for his supporters and another for the rest of the world’’. Gadkari said, “The country’s Prime Minister is not of one party, and is the nation’s honour. For a responsible leader of a political party, leveling such baseless and untrue allegation is unfortunate. It is not good for Indian democracy.” He called Rahul’s comments “irresponsible, baseless and false’’. “The Karnataka government should maintain law and order in its state and the Congress government must investigate this matter and book the culprits soon.”

Gadkari said that he condemned the incident but the manner in which some political parties are portraying the BJP is unfortunate and objectionable. “If there is a murder and somebody is accused of it, unless and until there is any evidence, that person cannot be pronounced guilty. Some people have allergy with BJP,” he said.