BJP says Rahul Gandhi humiliated Shivakumar at march; Karnataka CM says clip misleads

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has urged Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar to stand up to Rahul Gandhi over a video from Monday’s INDIA bloc march in Delhi, which the BJP says shows Gandhi humiliating him. Shivakumar has brushed the charge aside.

The short clip, from the march from Barakhamba Road towards the Supreme Court against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, appears to show Gandhi pulling Shivakumar back by his shirt.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who left the Congress for the BJP in 2015, shared the video on X. “In 2015, I refused to swallow humiliation, as a proud Assamese. God was kind to me,” he wrote, asking whether the Karnataka chief minister would “bow to this public humiliation”. He added: “Change the mask all you like; the face beneath stays the same.”

Rijiju followed with a post of his own, pointing to Shivakumar’s pride in being a Kannadiga. Shivakumar, he wrote, “will surely stand up against Rahul Gandhi Ji for humiliating him, the way Himanta Ji stood.”

‘Out of concern for my safety’

Shivakumar replied on X that Gandhi had been looking out for him.

“Shri @RahulGandhi, out of concern for my safety, advised me to return to the vehicle and be cautious,” he wrote. “A 10-second video cannot tell the whole story.”

He urged critics to look at the issue the march was about. “Let us not lose sight of the real issue: Vote Chori and the fight to safeguard every Indian’s right to vote,” he said, under the heading “Our Fight Is for Democracy, Not Distractions.”

Gandhi and the Congress had not commented on the BJP’s remarks by Wednesday morning.