Bengaluru, May 26 (IANS) The Karnataka BJP has criticised the Congress-led state government’s decision to file a defamation case in connection with a newspaper advertisement that highlighted the government’s failures.

The advertisement, presented as a “charge sheet”, was released on the occasion of the Congress government completing two years in office.

BJP State President B.Y. Vijayendra said on Monday, “A second chapter of ‘emergency’ has begun in Karnataka. But the power to reverse it lies with democracy, with the people of Karnataka, with the opposition parties, and with the media. The Congress-led government in Karnataka will realise this very soon.”

“There is absolutely no question of the BJP Karnataka being intimidated by any threat from the Congress government. If you believe that you can silence the voice of the opposition by invoking the names of police and law, that is nothing but the height of your foolishness,” he said.

It is now clear that the Congress’s decision to file a defamation case — based on the advice of sycophants and irrational minds — against the Bharatiya Janata Party is not just an act of political retaliation but also a vengeful move against the media, he underlined.

The dark chapter of imposing an Emergency in India, aimed at strangling the democratic system, belongs to the Congress party. It is the Congress that earned infamy for jailing opposition political leaders and key figures in an attempt to suppress the opposition — an integral part of democracy. It was during the Emergency that media offices were locked down, press freedom was crushed, and the spirit of the Constitution was trampled upon — this too is part of Congress’ history, he recalled.

“Every time Congress comes to power, it gets intoxicated by authority. In the last two years in Karnataka, it has been trying to establish authoritarian rule. To suppress opposition parties that have been questioning the series of corruption scandals and the zero-development governance, the Congress has misused the police system to intimidate them. Using the Speaker of the Assembly, the Congress suspended 18 opposition MLAs for an extended period — using the Speaker’s chair to showcase its autocratic mindset,” he asserted.

“Now, in the name of ‘achievements’, the Congress government has set out to mislead the people of the state with lavish ‘Sadhana Samaveshas (achievement conventions)’, despite an empty treasury. When the BJP, as a responsible opposition, issued advertisements through the media questioning this anti-people move, the Congress, rattled by the criticism, has resorted to filing a defamation suit. By deploying government machinery and officials for this purpose, it has, for the first time in Karnataka, issued a dark warning aimed at intimidating both the opposition and the media,” Vijayendra noted.

He said the Congress government is so terrified that a mere advertisement reflected nothing but cowardice, he stated.

The Congress-led government had issued a notification on Sunday stating that a decision had been made to file the defamation case with the 42nd Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court (CMM) against the “false campaign” against the state government.

The government further stated that it had appointed the Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) to file the case and appointed public prosecutors B.S. Patil and Shailaja Nayak to argue the case. The government had also appointed Kumata Prakash, Deputy Secretary of the DPAR department, to coordinate between different departments and provide all inputs and documents in the case to the public prosecutors.

–IANS

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