A letter which was purportedly written by Karnataka Congress leader M B Patil to Sonia Gandhi in July 2017, has been shared by the official Twitter handle of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Karnataka state unit. According to the tweet, the letter exposes the divide-and-rule policy of the Congress party which had allegedly fomented division within the Hindu community in Karnataka by pledging a separate status for the Lingayat community.
Congress exposed
The entire Lingayat & Veerashaiva community division was planted under direct instruction of Sonia Gandhi
The letter written to Sonia Gandhi by Congress leader MB Patil exposes shocking details of how Sonia Gandhi wanted to divide Hindu communities in Karnataka pic.twitter.com/ZC6CpQf1fN
— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) April 16, 2019
Tweeted in the morning of April 16, it has been retweeted over 1400 times and ‘liked’ over 1800 times so far. An excerpt from this ‘letter’ is quoted below.
“The unanimous opinion is that in order to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it is essential to curb the RSS growth in Karnataka and defeat BJP in the 2018 Assembly elections. This can be achieved by uniting the Muslims and Christians on the basis of their faith; divide the Hindus on the basis of caste/sub-caste and sect and sub/sect.”
Fake letter, previously debunked by Alt News
The same ‘letter’ had circulated widely ahead of the assembly election in Karnataka in May 2018. The fake news website Postcard News had even published an article based purely on this fake letter. The article was, expectedly, later deleted and so was Postcard News founder Mahesh Vikram Hegde’s tweet regarding the same.
The letter is fake. Not only are the language and contents a dead giveaway, a quick Google search reveals that ‘Global Christian Council’ and ‘World Islamic Organisation’, organisations with which the Congress has supposedly schemed to politically divide the state, do not even exist. The names of the organisations are a figment of imagination.
Moreover, M B Patil, in a conversation with Alt News had confirmed that the letter is fake. Alt News’ earlier fact-check can be read here.
Republic TV publishes article, deletes
The English news channel Republic TV initially reported about this letter, publishing an article with the words “SENSATIONAL: BJP shares purported Congress’ 2017 strategy letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi pitching explosive caste and religion divide and conquer plan”.
The article is now no longer on the website. A little later, Republic TV updated their reportage with the word ‘fake’ to describe the letter. It may be noted that this was in the nature of an updation, despite the fact that this letter has been debunked previously.
With the Lok Sabha election underway and Karnataka set to vote from the second phase onward on April 18, such recirculation of previously bunked information is to be expected.
This article was first published at Alt News.