In what might be an incident of “rising intolerance” under the Congress government of Karnataka, it has been reported that a police constable has been suspended for questioning CM Siddaramaiah’s “secular credentials” on Facebook.
Due to his Facebook post, disciplinary proceedings have also been initiated against the constable named Raj Shivappa who was attached with the Belthangady police station in Karnataka.
Raj, who became a police constable 6 years ago was purportedly right leaning and he has been working at the police station from the last 5 years.
As per the report, the Facebook post in question contained two pictures which lampooned CM Siddaramaiah’s public policy of being “secular”. Another post contained pictures of Modi visiting Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala and Siddaramaiah eating a fish. That post also praised PM Modi who as per Shivappa, follows Hindu traditions.
Local Congress leaders as a result didn’t lie this online behaviour of Shivappa and filed a case against him. This was then registered by the police.
Also to mention that it isn’t a solitary incident when it comes to CM Siddaramaiah.
It was reported in June, 2016 how a youth was arrested from Koppa in central Karnataka for posting an objectionable image of the CM on Facebook and also accompanying it with some comments. Another youth who shared it on WhatsApp was also arrested.
A software engineer was arrested this June in Bangalore, after he created a fake twitter handle of Siddaramaiah and started tweeting content on behalf of the Chief Minister’s office. The complaint in this case was lodged by Chief Minister’s media adviser.
Apart from not taking criticism too well, Siddaramaiah has also being accused of living a VVIP lifestyle at the cost of common people.
It was reported how on at-least two instances [1][2] the police had stopped ambulances in order to let Siddaramaiah’s convoy pass. In one of the instances, a critical patient was on board. After the media and the public started to create a furore over such instances, reports claimed that Siddaramaiah had allowed an ambulance to overtake his convoy. This though wasn’t before him boasting about it on twitter, for which he again was panned by people.
If all this wasn’t enough, he has also managed to notch various allegations of nepotism, abuse of powers and scams during his time as Chief Minister.