Mysuru, 1 April

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday defended his son Yathindra's statement targeting Amit Shah, which BJP has termed as reprehensible and a personal attack on the Union Home Minister and lodged a complaint with the Election Commission. Siddaramaiah said his son never intended to insult Shah and his statement was based on CBI's submission in the court.

Addressing a party meeting in Hanur town of Chamarajanagar district last Thursday, Yathindra, a former MLA, allegedly said: "Home Minister Amit Shah is a goonda, rowdy, there was a murder charge against him in Gujarat and he was exiled, and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi did politics keeping such people next to him....".

A day later, the Karnataka unit of the BJP filed a complaint with the poll body describing the statement as a personal attack on the party leader and alleged that Yathindra had used "abusive and inflammatory language" against Shah. It said the statement violated provisions of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).

Siddaramaiah said: “Yathindra has given a statement based on the CBI report in the court. Is the CBI report to the court right or wrong? Based on the CBI’s submission to the court he has said it. He has no intention to insult Amit Shah."

BJP also alleged Yathindra’s statement reflected his upbringing. Responding to this, Siddaramaiah said it is the BJP which does not know "Samskara" (culture).

On BJP’s claim of winning 400 seats across the country in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Chief Minister said: “You know why (BJP is saying this), because they will get less than 200 seats. They have done a survey. Their tally is less than 200, so they are strategically saying ‘400’ (seats).”

Asked how many seats that the Congress will win nationally, Siddaramaiah said he has no information about his party’s target, but he is confident that the outfit would bag up to 20 seats out of the total 28 in the State.