Siddaramaiah sends legal notice to Modi, Shah over slur

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah yesterday served a Rs1bn legal notice on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and party’s state unit chief B S Yeddyurappa for alleged defamatory speeches and advertisements against him in the media.The BJP leaders will have to face civil and criminal action and pay damages of Rs1bn in the event of the BJP leaders failing to withdraw their statements and issuing an unconditional public apology, the notice added.“The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has published several political advertisements in Kannada and English newspapers, television channels and on the social media, which are defamatory against Siddaramaiah,” said lawyer and Congress member of legislative council V S Ugrappa in the notice.The lawsuit also termed as “maligning” Modi’s speeches referring to Siddaramaiah-led government as a “seedha rupiah sarkar” (money-making government) and that the state government was talking about “ease of doing murders” while the world was talking about the ease of doing business.It also referred to newspaper advertisements appearing since March 28 in Kannada and English, which claimed that the Congress government had turned Bengaluru into a city of garbage and destroyed its lakes, along with pictorial display of silhouettes of Siddaramaiah.“These allegations are completely false, fabricated and do not have an iota of truth and have been made with a malicious intent to defame (Siddaramaiah) and destroy his reputation in the eyes of the public at large,” said Ugrappa in the legal notice.During public rallies in the state ahead of the May 12 assembly elections, Modi on several occasions alleged that the state’s Congress government worked on commissions basis and was hand in glove with the mining mafia, and was talking about ease of committing murders instead of business.Through the statements and advertisements, the BJP leaders had committed offences punishable under Sections 499, 500, 501 and 502 (defamation and printing defamatory matter) of the Indian Penal Code, the notice said.“You are called to cease and desist from making such statements and give an unconditional public apology immediately through electronic, print and social media in which the statements and advertisements have appeared,” the lawsuit notice asserted.The BJP leaders will have to face civil and criminal action and pay damages of Rs1bn in the event of the BJP leaders failed to withdraw their statements and issuing an apology, the notice added. Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi yesterday took a dig at Modi by likening him to a mobile phone, saying that “Modi uses only speaker and airplane mode and not work mode”.Gandhi’s retort came in response to a query from reporters about Modi’s jibe at an election rally that the Congress would be reduced to “PPP (Punjab, Puducherry and Parivar) Congress” after the Karnataka polls.“There are three modes in a cell phone: the first is the work mode, the other two are speaker mode and airplane mode. Modi only uses speaker and airplane mode, he never uses work mode,” Gandhi said.Gandhi, who held a protest here over rise in prices of petroleum products, alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s chief ministerial candidate in Karnataka B S Yeddyurappa and Reddy brothers were “most corrupt” and asked Modi why he was “shielding” them.PM rejects Congress charge on unemploymentPrime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday rejected the Congress accusation against his government of not creating enough jobs and claimed that several of its initiatives led to the creation of jobs in the public and private sectors. Modi, in turn, held the Congress responsible for the unemployment situation and accused it of opposing technologies/initiatives like the EVMs and Aadhaar. “With emphasis on public and private sectors, we are also focusing on personal sector for employment. The pace of work on the infrastructure projects has been increased,” Modi said in response to a query while addressing Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha workers through his NaMo app.