Overview

• He said he would apologise if Congress colleagues or INDIA bloc partners felt hurt and denied acting under high-command pressure.
• He reaffirmed he is a “born Congressman,” described the Gandhi family as central to his political loyalty, and rejected any shift toward the BJP or RSS.
• Senior Congress leader B.K. Hariprasad publicly pressed for an apology, calling the recital inappropriate for a state party president given the RSS’s history.
• Opponents amplified the episode, with BJP figures portraying it as a softening toward the RSS and JD(S) mocking his apology, while some Congress MLAs defended the lines as harmless.
• The recital occurred on August 21 during an Assembly discussion of the June 4 Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede that left 11 people dead.