The Congress publication National Herald has come up with its own angle on the Gauri Lankesh murder, spinning the theory that "since the saffron forces do not have recourse to the administrative and police machinery in states not ruled by the BJP, they have to kill to silence opposing voices". Its says that is their mission in states where some freedom of speech exists, and cites the killings of Lankesh and Kalburgi in Congress ruled Karnataka, and the killings of Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar in Maharashtra in the years when the Congress-NCP government was in power there.