Mangaluru : Former home minister R Ashoka with Mp candidate Nalin Kumara Kateel and other local BJP leaders performed ‘Chappara muhurath’ for PM Narendra Modi’s April 13 rally at Nehru Maidan on Saturday.

Speaking the reporters R Ashoka said that one must wonder whether to believe him or Army personnel. “We have seen in the case of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman how armed force personnel put nation before self and don’t divulge state secrets even under gravest of threats,” he said.

No armed force personnel of any of the three wings or central armed police force will ever share such sensitive information in the public domain – whether while serving or post-retirement, he said, adding every personnel is bound by the oath they had taken when enlisting in the force – not to ever utter a word of their professional engagement ever. “They will never do such an act and any officer disclosing such a big matter is ruled out,” he said.

Taking a political pot-shot at his one-time boss, when Ashoka served as deputy CM under Kumaraswamy, Padmanabhanagar MLA, in-charge of Modi’s political rallies in Karnataka, said, “Everyone knows the ease with which you lie. We have seen this in the case of former PM HD Deve Gowda who said the 2014 elections would be his last and several elections before that and Kumaraswamy is continuing the same legacy.”

MLA’s Vedavyasa Kamath, Dr. Bharath Shetty, Sanjeevea Matandooru, Sunila Karkala and others were present.