Tejasvi Surya makes a U-turn; disowns uncle over madrasa remark

Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya's alleged expose of a "massive racket" in the COVID bed allotment system led by BBMP quickly took a communal turn when a video of the national president of the BJP youth wing went viral. In the video, Surya can be heard listing out names of members of BBMP COVID war room and all of them belonged to a single community. Taking note of this, netizens and leaders from the opposition charged at the BJP leader for creating communal disharmony amid a pandemic.

Surya was accompanied by other BJP legislators, including his uncle Ravi Subramanya, who is a BJP MLA. In the video, Subramanya can be heard lashing out at the BBMP officials, questioning them if the BBMP COVID war room is a madrasa.

Soon after the video went viral, which was shortly after Surya's press conference where he allegedly exposed a massive "bribe for bed" scam, the BJP youth leader was on the receiving end of endless criticism. After staying mum, Surya finally broke his silence and in doing so distanced himself from the controversial "madrasa" remark made by his MLA-uncle.

Tejasvi Surya disowns uncle

Responding to a press query about Subramanya's madrasa remark, Surya was quick to disassociate himself.

"You need to ask him why he made that statement. He accompanied me to the BBMP war room, as did a couple of other MLAs. I am not responsible for what he said," Surya said in a statement.

Surya also dismissed other allegations against him, where he was accused of diverting people's attention from Chamrajanagar tragedy and that his people wanted to control the war rooms and the BJP leader was angry as BBMP officials did not oblige his requests.

When asked about why the BJP leaders in charge of the other eight zones were not criticized, he said they were unaware of the issue being a technical one. "Now that the ministers know about it, they will take care of it," Surya said.