Sri Ram Sena chief and leader of the moral policing gang Pramod Muthalik has announced that he would be contesting as an Independent from Dharwad Parliamentary constituency against BJP State chief Prahlad Joshi. Addressing a Press conference in Hubli on Tuesday, after being expelled from the BJP, Muthalik, who has over 45 cases against him, said he would be contesting in Dharwad as an Independent candidate to take on BJP’s Prahlad Joshi.
He also said that another candidate Ramakanth will contest from Belgaum. A few hours after he was admitted to the BJP, he was shunted out and retorted by giving a deadline to the saffron party. He said, “I will file my nomination papers as an Independent to stand by myself. I will fight this election for the sake of Hindutva. I will tell people about the insult meted out to me.” “I will work for the Hindu Samaj in Dharwad lok Sabha constituency. It is not just that I have been insulted, but the people of Dharwad, the Hindus, there have been insulted,” he added.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley admitted on Monday that it was a “mistake” to have taken Pramod Muthalik, who led an attack on women in a Karnataka pub in 2009, into the party. Many senior BJP leaders came down on State BJP’s decision to admit him. Muthalik also justified the 2009 attack saying that women drinking alcohol is against the “Indian culture.” later, he came down on senior BJP leader and Bangalore south candidate HN Ananth Kumar and blamed him for the entire drama. He alleged that Kumar was responsible for stalling his entry into the party and said that he would campaign against him. He also accused BJP State president Prahlad Joshi of being in “Ananth Kumar’s company”.
Muthalik blamed BJP national president Rajnath Singh and questioned why he did not take any action on various other tainted leaders. “Did Rajnath Singh take any action against the BJP Ministers who were caught watching porn during the AssemblyIJ He is also answerable for this.”