Bengaluru: Congress Karnataka Chief DK Shivakumar on Monday slammed BJP leader Eshwarappa for his remarks that his party will not hand tickets to Muslim candidates in the Belagavi Lok Sabha by-poll elections.

Shivakumar who was in Devanahalli on Monday to attend a party meeting advised Eshwarappa to go through India’s Constitution and to read what the constitution says.

Speaking to media reporters after his party’s meeting, Shivakumar said “That is what the BJP is all about. They don’t know what is written in the Constitution of India. They don’t know what the Constitution is and they don’t take pride in our constitution. They just want to burn the Constitution”.

“They should read the constitution and read what is mentioned in it” he noted while calling on the BJP to suspend the minority wing of the party.

Eshwarappa had recently courted controversy after he remarked that there was no question of his party fielding Muslim candidates in the Belagavi Lok Sabha by-poll elections.

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Kolkata (PTI): The Election Commission suspended three central armed police force personnel after a purported video went viral showing them playing carrom inside a Trinamool Congress (TMC) office at Suri in West Bengal's Birbhum district, a senior official said on Sunday.

A departmental inquiry has been ordered into the matter, he said.

"As of now, these three personnel have been removed from poll duty. We have initiated an inquiry into the incident. The authenticity of the video recording is being checked thoroughly," the poll body official said.

The disciplinary action was triggered by a purported video which went viral on Saturday, showing one personnel playing carrom with three local youths, another standing, and a third seated on a chair inside the TMC office in Suri.

PTI, however, could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

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This was the second such disciplinary action taken against the central forces deployed in Bengal in the run up to the to the state elections by the poll body in four days for violating commission's guidelines.

On March 25, the EC transferred seven paramilitary personnel deployed on election duty in Murshidabad district out of the state for allegedly attending an iftar party in violation of guidelines.

The jawans, along with two policemen, had allegedly attended an Iftar on March 8 hosted by local TMC leader Samim Sheikh, husband of Aliara Bibi, pradhan of Nimtita gram panchayat in the Samsergunj area of Murshidabad.

Responding to the latest development in Suri, BJP candidate for the segment, Jagannath Chatterjee, condemned the incident, calling it "extremely reprehensible and disappointing."

"It is unclear how and where the central forces are being deployed. If the local administration or police had a role in this carrom game, strict action should be taken against them as well," Chatterjee said.

Congress Birbhum district president Sanjay Adhikari expressed similar concern, saying, "Playing carrom is not a crime, but doing so inside a political party's office is inappropriate."

Responding to the controversy, TMC leader of Birbhum district Malay Mukherjee said, "Those who were working here understand that casually interacting with TMC is not a crime. That is probably why they were talking and playing carrom."

The EC had previously issued directives prohibiting the deployed CAPF from accepting any form of hospitality or participating in social and private gatherings during poll duty while putting in place strict monitoring mechanisms, including GPS tracking and body cameras, to oversee movement and activities of the forces.