HDK backs Doddarange in Kannada language issue

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Seeking to project himself as the champion of regional pride, former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has commended the celebrated poet and president of the 86th Kannada Sahitya Sammelana Doddarange Gowda for pointing to the alleged step-motherly treatment being meted out to Kannada language by the BJP government in the State and Centre.

Kumaraswamy had also backed the claim of Doddarange Gowda that the Centre had not allocated enough funds for the study and research of the classical language. Gowda’s remarks came on Friday in the programme being held in Haveri.

He’d said that Kannada had received a measly Rs 3 crore in funding from the Union government over a period of three years between 2017 and 2020. Blasting the “double engine government” at the State and Centre, he pointed out that Sanskrit had received ?643 crore in the same period. Kumaraswamy lauded the celebrated poet for his stand and insisted that he had been raising the issue as well.

“Earlier, the president of the 86th Kannada Sahitya Sammelana Doddarange Gowda Dr Doddarange Gowda had raised the issue of injustice in the granting of funds for Kannada language. He also had brought the matter before Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. I heartily congratulate him over this,” he said.

Gowda had also raised matter related to Kannada services not being available in banks, absence of the regional language in technical education and undermining of Karnataka's interests with regard to the Belagavi border dispute with Maharashtra, among other issues. He had also written a 48-page letter detailing his complaints and distributed it among mediapersons. But he had raised only some of them at the programme.