BAGALKOT: Former Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday made a controversial statement about people wearing vermillion (tilak or tikka) on their foreheads.
Addressing an event in Bagalkot’s Badami, he said, “I am scared of people who wear long tikas with kumkum or ash.” He had pointed to a man who was wearing a ‘tikka’ in the crowd and made the remark,
Wearing vermillion on the forehead is an ancient Hindu practice.
In January, Siddaramaiah had lost his cool and was caught on camera furiously snatching a mikefrom a woman, in the process of which her ‘dupatta’ also fell.
However, clarifying the incident later he said, “It was an accident, there was no bad intention. I know her for 15 years, she is just like my sister.”
Siddaramaiah is a sitting MLA from Badami constituency in Karnataka.
