Islamophobic Remarks :

Basanagounda Patil Yatnal is a seasoned politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who hails from the southern state of Karnataka. He has served in the Karnataka legislative assembly for a number of terms and has also served in the Indian government as a minister.

Yatanl is well known for his blatant anti-Muslim views. He actively incites hatred and violence against the Muslim community on a regular basis. In 2014, he was detained by Karnataka Police in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, on suspicion of inciting violence against minority community members in Bijapur two days after Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister.

He stated in June 2018: “I never asked Muslims to vote for me; I had faith that Hindus would do so. Hindus were responsible for making sure I won the election. Instead of the Muslim community, I shall seek to develop the Hindu community.

In July 2018, during a public event honoring the Kargil triumph, he declared: “Intellectuals like the food, air, and water of this country… They make utterances that are critical of the army and the nation. Being that these are academics and secularists from our nation, the country’s suffering. Yet they make these claims. They will be lined up and shot, if I am elected home minister.

If his party won back power, he promised to close all Madrassas (Muslim educational institutions) in Karnataka.

When speaking to a crowd at Vijayapura, Karnataka, on another occasion, he uttered the hateful phrase, “All MLAs ask me, in your constituency, there are one lakh Tipu Sultans (Muslim votes), how a Shivaji Maharaj descendant won from Bijapur. In the future, none of Tipu Sultan’s supporters in Bijapur will prevail. You must not, under any circumstances, vote for Muslims.

Yatnal claims that his own Party offered him the office of Chief Minister in exchange for a payment of 25 billion rupees. He claimed, “I don’t know this kind of theatrics, but if I did, they (referring to the BJP high command) would have made me chief minister when Yeddyurappa (the then-BJP chief minister of Karnataka) was removed, not this time but the last.”

The Bhartiya Janata Party’s disciplinary committee responded by serving him with a show-cause notice for his subversive actions against the party.