Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has instructed the state police to crack down on “fake news” and take action against those spreading misinformation.

This is a day after the Karnataka Congress had filed a police complaint against BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, national president JP Nadda, and Chandigarh state president Arun Sood for spreading “malicious, false and incendiary content” about the Congress party and its leaders.

According to PTI, the newly-minted chief minister, whose Congress party won the assembly election in May, said “previous political opponents” – referring to the BJP – had “tried to create unrest in the society by spreading false news”. 

With the Lok Sabha election scheduled for next year, he said there are “clear indications that there may be attempts to create mob attacks and riots through fake news and misinformation”.

Siddaramaiah said he would “reinstate” a police fact-check initiative that had been set up in 2021 to tackle fake news about Covid, the News Minute reported. 

Controversially, Karnataka Congress leader Priyank Kharge had told the Times of India the fact-checking unit will be “on the lines of the centre’s own fact-checking unit”, referring to the central government’s much-criticised amendment to the IT Rules. But Kharge hastened to add that the unit’s intent was “to only curb fake and misleading information and not to control statements which criticise the government policies and administration”.