The Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth leaders in Karnataka sprinkled cow urine at the venue of a programme in Sirsi city where actor Prakash Raj, a vocal critic of Hindutva politics, spoke on January 14, The News Minute reported. This was a “purification ritual”, the outfit’s leader said.

At the event – called ‘Our Constitution, Our pride’ – Raj reportedly criticised Union minister Anantkumar Hegde, who is also the BJP MP from Uttara Kannada. Raj had criticised Hegde on December 25 also for inciting hate by saying that secular people do not have an “identity of their parental blood” and that the Constitution needs to be amended.

Asked why they sprinkled cow urine, BJP Yuva Morcha President in Karwar Vishal Marate told the news website, “These people are self-proclaimed, pretend and left-leaning intellectuals, and have conducted a programme at a religious place and made it impure.” Marate said Raj spoke against their leader as well. “That’s why we purified the place with gau mutra.”

Referring to Raj, Marate said that people who “eat cow meat” and those who are “anti-Hindu” had turned the venue impure.

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The actor reacted to this, asking the party’s leaders if they will clean and purify every place he visits.

The actor had earlier spoken out against the BJP during the inaugural ceremony of the International Film Festival of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram on December 8, 2017. He had said that an agenda was being forced upon people. “It is not just creative voices, but just any form of dissent is being silenced,” he had said. “I talk to raise my voice, not because I belong to a political party, but as an artist, because I feel responsible to speak up. When you silence a voice, a louder voice will be born.”

Raj had also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence following journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder.