A fresh chapter in the conflict between the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association and the minister began on Monday with a letter demanding the immediate arrest of Horticulture Minister Munirathna Naidu in a hate speech case.
D Kempanna, the president of the Association, and four other office holders were detained in connection with a defamation claim Munirathna had made in December. Without mentioning Munirathna, Kempanna said that the minister in charge of the Kolar district was threatening to collect and deliver him money from officials. This led to the filing of the complaint.
Munirathna handed the contractors a seven-day deadline to provide proof before bringing a civil defamation claim for Rs 50 crore in damages.
Munirathna was detained by the police last month for allegedly making anti-Christian remarks. His opponent from Rajarajeshwarinagar, Kusuma H of the Congress, initially reported the speech to the local police. A gazetted official later filed a complaint against him, accusing him of fomenting animosity among individuals, leading to the registration of the case.
The Association said on Monday that it was filing a contempt petition with the Supreme Court in response to the minister’s continued detention. “As we have personally witnessed, the Bangalore Police proceeded to arrest some of us simply because we were unable to appear in court for just one day,” the group said. Additionally, we have the authority to declare in public that the Bangalore Police is engaging against the law by sheilding Mr. Munirathna by not arresting him.
Munirathna defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2019’s political unrest. He was elected to the legislature from the Rajarajeshwarinagar constituency twice, in 2013 and 2018 on the ticket of the Congress, and in 2020 from the BJP. He was appointed the state’s Minister of Horticulture, Planning, Programme Monitoring, and Statistics in August of the following year.