BSNL employees are ‘traitors’, ‘unwilling to work’: BJP MP Ananthkumar Hegde

Ananthkumar Hegde, BJP MP from Karnataka's Uttara Kannada, has stoked controversy after he termed state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's (BSNL) employees as "traitors" and said that the company would be privatised.

"Employees in BSNL are traitors who are not willing to work," he said in Kannada at a meeting in Kumta on Monday.

Hegde said the company with 88,000 employees will be privatised.

"The government gave money and people need services but the employees do not work," he said.

According to the MP, the company has become a "disgrace" to the entire country and the government will shut it down.

He said the government will implement a disinvestment policy to close the company so that private entities can take over the vacuum left by it.

Hegde said the Prime Minister talks about Digital India and allocates funds for it but the employees do not work, requiring the central government to remedy the problem by privatising BSNL. The BJP MP has courted controversy on many occasions earlier with his statements.