Karnataka bill taxing temples 'new low' for Congress: BJP's Rajeev Chandrasekhar

New Delhi: Union Minister and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday slammed the Congress government in Karnataka over the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowment Bill passed by the state assembly and called it a 'new low' for the state's ruling party.

"Every time you think Rahul's Congress cannot fall any lower, along comes and example of them falling even lower," Chandrasekhar said.

"The Karnataka Congress headed by D K Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, Rahul's handpicked leaders for the Karnataka Congress, have today brought a Karnataka Religious Endowment Bill, where they propose that 10 per cent of donations received by the Hindu temples every year will be taken away by the government without assigning any reason or cause," he said.

"This money that is being given to the temple by Hindu devotees for the upkeep of the temple as a sign of faith is in a sense being looted by the government of Karnataka to fund their various requirements for the Congress," he said.

"This is the government which in few months has shown crore and crore of rupees have been siphoned off and given to their contractors. And now the case they're making to fund their corrupt politics is that the Hindu devotees in Karnataka must give money to the Karnataka Congress ATM machine... Hindu devotees' money is being looted by the Karnataka government," he said.

The Karnataka government on Wednesday passed the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowment Bill in the Assembly. The bill mandates that the government will collect 10 per cent of the income of temples that have revenues of more than Rs 1 crore.