In yet another incident involving shocking comments and statements from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, an MLA from Karnataka has sparked a controversy when he said that he would have ordered the police to shoot the intellectuals has he been the Union Home Minister. 

Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, who is a BJP MLA from Vijayapura, said: “these people” use the facilities for which “we pay taxes” and also branded liberals and intellectuals “anti-national”. 

"These people (intellectuals) live in this country and use all the facilities for which we pay tax. Then they raise slogans against the Indian Army. Our country faces grave danger from intellectuals and seculars than anyone else," Yatnal said at a Kargil Vijay Diwas event on Thursday.

He has also stirred another debate when he instructed the local party municipal members to not help people of Muslim community, as reported news agency ANI. Yatnal has been BJP MLA from 1994 to 1999 and has served an MP form Bijapur between 1999-2009. 

He has also held the post of Minister of State for Textiles and Railways between 2002-04 under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Yatnal quit the BJP in 2010 and joined Janata Dal (Secular). He then quit JD(S) to and contested the election as an independent candidate, only to join BJP later in 2013. 

In February, BJP MP Vinay Katiyar said Muslims living in India should go to Pakistan or Bangladesh. He had said, "Muslims shouldn't even be living in this country, they're the ones who partitioned this country based on their population, so why do they need to live here? They were given separate territory, they should go to Pakistan or Bangladesh, what business do they have here."