Breakfast at Dalit home: Yeddyurappa accuses Cong of indulging

The BJP's Karnataka chief B S Yeddyurappa today refuted allegations that he preferred breakfast from a hotel instead of what was prepared at a Dalit's house he had visited and termed it a 'malicious' campaign by the Congress.
Asserting that today also he has had breakfast at a Dalit's house in a colony in Bagalkote in presence of the media, he claimed that the Congress was unable to resist the initiative taken by his party.
"We had gone to understand the issues faced by them and will continue to do it," the state BJP chief said.
"What I feel is, the Congress is unable to resist that we are visiting Dalit mohallas, we are eating breakfast at their houses, we are receiving applications from them and trying to respond to their issues. So they are doing this malicious campaign," Yeddyurappa told reporters at Bagalkote.

As part of his drought study tour across the state, the former chief minister was recently in Chitradurga where he along with other leaders partook of breakfast at a Dalit's house.
It was alleged that Yeddyurappa had breakfast brought from a nearby hotel instead of what was homemade and he drew flak from both the Congress and the JD(S).

Reacting to the allegations, BJP spokesperson and MLA Suresh Kumar noted that the host had confirmed that Yeddyurappa had breakfast prepared in the house.
It was also stated they had to get food from outside as they could not cater immediately to the large number of visitors.

"What is central to the whole issue is having food at the residence of Dalits with the members of the family and not to bother whether the food is prepared at home or brought from outside," Kumar said.
He said by casting aspersions on the BJP of not having food prepared at a Dalit's house, the Congress has insulted and humiliated the entire community and it has no moral right to speak on the issue of Dalits after having used them as vote bank for over seven decades.
Meanwhile, Mandya police has received a complaint against Yeddyurappa following the incident, where a person named D Venkatesh has accused him of discrimination, the police said.