Congress leader and MLC B.K. Hariprasad on Sunday said South India is 200 years ahead in all aspects of development when compared to North India.
Participating in a seminar on ‘Theocracy and Secular Democracy’, organised on the occasion of the release of V.D. Savarkar: Elu Mithyegalu, a translation of the work by Shamsul Islam by Tadagalale Surendra Rao, Mr. Hariprasad said “Compared to Gujarat, Maharashtra, we are 50 years ahead. Because, in South India, many social reformers, including Basaveshwara, Periyar, Phule, Ambedkar, Vemana, were engaged in bringing social reforms.”
“We are ahead because of their hard work. Even today there is a lack of infrastructure in the North. Minor girls are sexually assaulted in States like Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
Coming down on the RSS, the Congress leader said: “Kallakda Republic and Karnataka’s Hindutva laboratory should be jailed at least for a day. Then, our State will be a garden of harmony as wished by Kuvempu”.
Writer Meenakshi Bali, who released the book, said: “This book is as important to us as Hindutva books are important to the RSS. This is a well-researched work and contains all the elements required for research.”
She said the book is more about how the Sangh Parivar is lying about V.D. Savarkar today rather than how many lies Savarkar spoke during his lifetime.
Mr. Rao said: “They claim that Savarkar was a freedom fighter. But he was working on a pension from the British. How can a person who helped the British become a freedom fighter?”
“The previous BJP government named a road in Yelahanka after Savarkar. There was huge opposition to it in the State. The government had claimed that he was a freedom fighter and named it after him. But, he is not even from Karnataka. If the government wants to name that road after a freedom fighter, let it be named after Kittur Rani Chennamma or Sangolli Rayanna,” he said.
