MP Kumaraswamy was heckled, assaulted, and had his shirt torn by a group of "angry villagers" after a woman was killed by a wild elephant.
BJP members have been arrested for the assault on their own party's MLA, MP Kumaraswamy. (Creative Commons)
Videos of MP Kumaraswamy, an MLA of the BJP from the reserved SC constituency of Mudigere in Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka, walking away in tattered clothes as forest department officials protected him from a mob of angry villagers captured headlines on Monday.
However, the hurt was deeper due to the fact that members of Kumaraswamy’s own political party were responsible for his assault.
The incident effectively bared the schisms within the Karnataka unit of the BJP.
It could also be a sign of an impending setback for the saffron party’s efforts to expand its footprints across southern India.
The MLA was heckled and assaulted, and his clothes were torn by people angry over a woman who was killed by a wild elephant in the constituency.
While the police made arrests in the case, the incident exposed the ugly infighting in the BJP ahead of the Assembly polls in Karnataka. The police arrested BJP party workers for allegedly assaulting Kumaraswamy.
Sources privy to the internal squabble in the BJP told South First that an unfortunate death and the anger of villagers over human-animal conflicts were seized upon by those who had differences with Kumaraswamy to insult and defame him publicly.
The Chikkamagaluru district’s Mudigere police registered two cases — one based on a complaint from Forest Department officials and another a suo motu complaint over the assault of the MLA.
A senior police officer said eight people had been arrested in the assault case, while two were arrested for assaulting and obstructing public servants — Forest Department officials — from discharging their duties. All 10 accused have been remanded in judicial custody, the officer added.
Sources from the MLA’s office said that the eight prime accused in the assault were BJP workers who had formed a “coterie against Kumaraswamy to defame and insult him”.
It was on Sunday evening when MP Kumaraswamy went to pay his last respects to a 45-year-old woman, Shobha, who was trampled to death by a wild elephant.
As soon as he reached the village, the MLA was surrounded by angry villagers — around 30 to 40 of them initially — who engaged in heated arguments with him and then allegedly started heckling him.
Kumaraswamy was then chased and assaulted by the locals who were protesting with the body of the woman.
A screengrab of MP Kumaraswamy’s torn shirt in the assault incident in Mudigere on Sunday
Shobha, a resident of the Hullumane village, was working at a paddy field near her house when she was attacked by a wild elephant.
The incident happened around 7 am and the entire village gathered in protest over her death.
The forest department officials reached the spot first, only to be heckled by the angry protestors who argued that despite many instances of elephant menace in Hullumane and nearby villages, the district authorities had done nothing to safeguard their lives or farms.
Earlier, the locals even demanded a Special Task Force (STF) to keep away wild elephants, but that too had not happened.
The agitators told the police and Forest Department officials that at least three people had been killed by elephants over the past three months, and that the elephants had been wandering into the estates for food and were destroying their crops.
Around 4.30 pm, Kumaraswamy came with a wreath to offer condolences to the deceased when a group of locals surrounded him and confronted him.
They argued with him over his delayed visit and his ignorance of their pleas to control the elephant menace in the village. Around 30-40 people gathered around the MLA and heckled him and abused him in filthy language.
“They snatched the wreath from my hand and beat me with that. They tore my shirt, and one of them even hit me with a chappal,” Kumaraswamy told South First.
Before the situation could go out of hand any further, another group of villagers came to Kumaraswamy’s rescue and surrounded him.
By then, the Forest Department officials took over and escorted him to his jeep.
“Later, the crowd even broke the glasses of the government jeep. However, I was driven away from the village to a safe zone by the police by then,” Kumaraswamy added.
Soon after the assault on the MLA, Kumaraswamy’s close aides and associates in Hullumane village reportedly informed him of a plan that was brewing to insult and defame him in the village.
“The death of the woman was used as an excuse to attack him,” sources from MLA’s office said.
Kumaraswamy told South First that the police will arrest more people other than the eight BJP workers already in custody at present.
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