Cong files complaint with CEO as row erupts over letter

The separate religious tag for Lingayats has reared its head with the BJP in Karnataka Tuesday sharing a letter on social media, triggering a strong reaction from the Congress which has lodged a complaint with the CEO against the BJP state president and other leaders.

The Congress took the step after BJP shared a letter on its Twitter handle allegedly written by then minister M B Patil to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi in July 2017.

This comes on a day when curtains were drawn on campaigning for 14 Lok Sabha seats, which will go to polls during the first phase in Karnataka, on April 18.

The letter, which Patil called fake, gave a roadmap to win the 2018 assembly elections by dividing Hindu society by giving separate religious minority tag for the Lingayat sect.

The letter was purportedly written on the letterhead of BLDE Association whose president was shown as Patil.

A newspaper too published a report based on the letter compelling the Congress to issue a clarification that letterhead of the organisation which was used for writing the letter itself was duplicate and did not exist.

Addressing a press conference, Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao said, "The BLDE letterhead itself is fake. There are several spelling mistakes in the letterhead. There are many shortcomings in the letterhead."