Karnataka polls: Rahul Gandhi visits Tumkur's Siddaganga Mutt

Congress President Rahul Gandhi visited the Siddaganga Mutt here on Wednesday as a part of his two-day visit to Karnataka. Accompanied by the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and senior Congress leaders, Rahul also met the mutt's pontiff Shivakumara Swami to seek his blessings ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

Gandhi is on a two-day campaign in central Karnataka, which faces an intense battle between the ruling Congress and the BJP, ahead of state assembly polls on May 12.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi government of "disrespecting" and "demolishing" various institutions by having RSS men "sitting in every ministry and giving orders."

"Interacting with the city's traders here, Gandhi said if voted to power, the Congress would free these institutions from the RSS control", he said.

He also took a swipe at Modi over the rising prices of petrol and diesel and posted a video that dubbed him the "king of misinformation" on the issue.

The video of Modi talking about reducing petrol and diesel prices at a rally is interspersed with images of Bollywood actor Salman Khan bursting into peals of laughter.

"The poor and the middle class bear the brunt of rising fuel prices. In this video, our PM is quite obviously talking about some other country," Rahul Gandhi tweeted, using "#PeTrolled" as the hashtag.