BJP Sends Legal Notice to Ramachandra Guha for Linking Gauri Lankesh's Murder With RSS

New Delhi: The Karnataka unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday sent a legal notice to eminent historian Ramachandra Guha for linking RSS with the murder of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh.

BJP has demanded Guha issue an unconditional apology in the next three days, and also refrain from making such comments.

“If Ramachandra Guha does not apologise, our party will initiate a legal process and take this to the court. Not just Guha, we are observing everyone who makes such comments, and notices will be issued to them, too,” said Karnataka BJP spokesperson Ashwath Narayana.

Reacting to the BJP-issued notice, Guha wrote on Twitter: "Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the answer to a book or article can only be another book or article. But we no longer live in Vajpayee's India."

In another tweet, Guha said that in India today, independent writers and journalists are "harassed, persecuted, and even killed. But we shall not be silenced".

Guha had, in the aftermath of Lankesh's murder, said: "It was likely that Gauri's murderers came from the same Sangh Parivar from which the murderers of [Govind] Pansare, [Narendra] Dabholkar and [MM] Kalburgi came."

"The ruling dispensation in Delhi has created a climate of hate and intolerance," he said.

Guha has been an ardent critic of the BJP and Modi government. He had also claimed in the past that he was receiving “identical threat emails” warning him not to castigate the Modi government.

The Karnataka BJP chief, B S Yeddyurappa had, earlier in the day, asked Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi to furnish evidence backing his allegations that RSS was behind the killing of Gauri Lankesh.

B S Yeddyurappa said, “If Rahul Gandhi has any proof to prove his allegations, he should furnish it.”

Gauri Lankesh's murder sparked off a big political controversy with both - BJP and Congress - trading barbs. The 55-year-old journalist was murdered by unknown assailants who pumped four bullets into her body outside her home in Bengaluru.