Days after a worker of the Bajrang Dal was arrested for the murder of a 30-year-old worker of the ruling party in Karnataka, Congress MLC B K Hariprasad demanded a ban on the right-wing outfit on Wednesday.
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Hariprasad said he had asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to ban the Bajrang Dal. “It was there in our manifesto,” Hariprasad told PTI Videos.
“Ganesh Gowda, a Congress worker, was killed in Chikkamagaluru district recently. Bajrang Dal activists were arrested, and they are involved in so many murder cases,” he added.
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“Way back in 2016 or 17 in Udupi, a BJP mandal president, a Hindu, was killed by the same organisation—the Hindu Jagaran Vedike and all,” the MLC said. “These organisations are a threat to peaceful civil society.”
The Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is active in Karnataka and other parts of India. The organisation’s members have been linked to several crimes, including murders in coastal Karnataka, and have been involved in activities like moral policing and cattle vigilantism.
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On December 5, Ganesh Gowda, a gram panchayat member and president of the local Vokkaligara Sangha, was hacked to death after he was allegedly lured to a settlement meeting held over a clash that occurred earlier in the day at the Sakarayapatna bus stand with a group of alleged Bajrang Dal workers. The Chikamagaluru police later arrested Mithun, 28, a Bajrang Dal worker, in the case.
In 2023, a moral policing incident was reported in Dakshina Kannada’s Someshwara beach, in which Bajrang Dal activists were arrested. Home Minister G Parameshwara said then that there was no proposal to ban the outfit in the state. In its election manifesto, the Congress had promised to take “decisive action”, including a ban on organisations spreading hatred among communities.
The Congress manifesto, in a section titled Law and Justice, had said law and the Constitution were “sacrosanct and cannot be violated by individuals and organisations like Bajrang Dal, PFI, or others promoting enmity or hatred, whether among majority or minority communities”.