Tejasvi Surya is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP for Bangalore South and the national president of the BJP Yuva Morcha, the party’s youth wing. He is known for his provocative and divisive speeches, which include statements calling for ‘ghar wapsi’ (religious conversion to Hinduism) of Muslims and Christians.

In 2021, Surya said that these groups must be reconverted to Hinduism on a “war footing”, adding that this  included converting Muslims in Pakistan to Hinduism. He also issued statements that claimed “Western” ideas were “enemies” of Hinduism and Sanatan Dharma. He was forced to recant several of these statements, after PM Narendra Modi met with Pope Francis in the Vatican City earlier in 2021.

In December 2019, during a rally held in support of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Bengaluru, Surya claimed  that only “illiterates and puncture-wallahs” had a problem with the CAA, referring to Muslims. In August 2020, he posted on X saying, “Dear Hindus, Most important lesson is that control of State power by Hindus is absolutely essential for sustenance of Dharma. When we didn’t control State, we lost our temple. When we regained, we rebuilt” (sic).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in  May of 2021, Surya visited a south zone war room, where he read out the names of 17 Muslim employees and claimed that they were part of a scam involving the allotment of beds in COVID-19 wards. The men were promptly removed from their jobs and, despite a police probe that proved Surya’s allegation to be baseless, the men continue to remain jobless and scared as social media threats poured in. Surya  refused to apologise until after public outrage.

Surya has repeatedly posted anti-Congress propaganda on his social media and has on multiple occasions praised the Abrogation of Article 370, which placed Muslim-majority Kashmir under brutal military control, claiming that the move had united the nation.