Miffed Lingayat leaders: Symbols are sacred to us

The Parliament security personnel found themselves in a quandary as the metal detector revealed that one of the 25 religious leaders had his private parts covered in a metal casing. After security personnel asked them to remove all the metal objects, including the rudraksha necklaces and extra layers of clothes on their shoulders, the Lingayat leaders looked miffed, and claimed they were insulted. “They (securitymen) don’t know the Constitution. The religious symbols on our bodies are sacred to us, and we never remove them. They have insulted us,” said Renuka Shivacharya Swamiji, the group’s head and president of the Rashtriya Shivacharya Parishad, based in Bengaluru.

Joint secretary (security) Yogesh Deshmukh said there were rules clearly laid down that any object which can be dropped was not allowed into the visitors gallery. He added that an exception could have been made to respect religious sentiments. But before the matter could reach higher officials in Parliament, the religious leaders had angrily left the complex without getting to watch the LS proceedings. They were issued passes to the LS visitors gallery on the recommendation of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and BJP MP Karadi Senga, from Koppal in Karnataka.

“The BJP has insulted Hindu leaders,” fumed one of the leaders, Mummadichardashankar Shivacharya. Mr Senga clarified that the religious leader meant the administration and not his party. Mr Kharge expressed helplessness, and said “Speaker Sumitra Mahajan does not listen to me”.