While the Chief Minister was closeted with top officials, including home minister V S Acharya, till late in the night, the fresh attacks on churches fly in the face of BJP’s assertions that the “Centre’s advisories to the state were an attempt to discriminate against non-Congress governments”.

“The Centre’s action (of sending advisories) is an attempt to target non-Congress governments and deflect attention from the anger across the country against terrorism,” claimed the party’s new poster boy Narendra Modi. “The Government is soft on the ISI but hard on the RSS,” said M Venkaiah Naidu.

The dramatis personae of the Karnataka riots, however, have a different take altogether. Apart from Bajrang Dal state convenor Mahendra Kumar , Pramod Mutalik, a former Bajrang Dal functionary, is believed to have led attacks on the churches.

Mutalik, who now heads the Sri Ram Sena, told The Indian Express: “The BJP Government in the state has been extremely supportive. Praveenbhai Togadia, Umadidi (Uma Bharati) are our source of inspiration.” On the role of his organisation, he said: “We are retaliating because we are being provoked.”

He is now said to be raising “Hindu suicide squads”. “We plan to train the youth for the nationalist cause. We hope to get the support of the police personnel for training them,” Mutalik added.

During the recent executive meeting in Bangalore, a nostalgic L K Advani recounted how his party opened its account way back in 1967 in the state. If the BJP in Karnataka is said to have emerged out of a template created entirely by the Sangh Parivar, the first elected Bharatiya Jana Sangh representative in the state, V S Acharya, is symptomatic of the dilemmas facing the BJP in power.

Said to be overtly sympathetic to Hindu organisations, Acharya is now the Home Minister in the B S Yeddyudarpa Government.

“Acharya is just not fit to become Home Minister. The continuing attacks on the churches are the handiwork of the Sangh Parivar,” said H T Sangliana, who was the BJP’s only Christian MP before he was expelled recently. Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik had also expressed concern over the role of Sangh Parivar affiliates in the state after the killing of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati.

The Sangh Parivar, however, holds movements like “New Life” and “Pentacostal” squarely responsible for communal clashes in Karnataka. The Chief Minister, too, had initially cited “conversions” as the reason for the clashes. With the continuing cycle of violence, Yeddyuarppa, however, told The Indian Express: “No one will be allowed to take law in their hands.”

A sizable section of the BJP, represented by general secretary Vinay Katiyar, continues to hold “conversions” responsible for the clashes in the state.

“Conversions led to all the problems in the state,” he said. Mutalik, Mahendra Kumar and others of their ilk have been parroting exactly the same line that has now pushed the state on the edge.