Ban MES or else... Outfits warn of bandh

35 pro-Kannada outfits set Dec. 29 as deadline for clamping down on pro-Maharashtra organisations; auto & cab drivers to back proposed bandh.

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: As many as 35 pro-Kannada organisations under the leadership of president of Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha, Vatal Nagaraj have called for ‘Karnataka Bandh’ on December 31 from 6 am to 6 pm demanding that the state government ban Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) which was allegedly involved in recent incidents in Belagavi city during which a statue of Kannada icon Sangolli Rayanna was vandalised.

The organisations have set December 29 as the deadline for the government to ban MES failing which they will go ahead with the state bandh. This was decided at a meeting of pro-Kannada organisations here on Wednesday.

The meeting was called in the wake of the desecration of the Rayanna statue, the damaging of government vehicles, burning of the Karnataka flag in Maharashtra and in villages in Belagavi, the attacks on KSRTC drivers and the threats issued to Kannadigas settled in Maharashtra. Nagaraj said the atrocities on Kannadigas in Maharashtra have reached the peak with MES and Shiv Sena activists targeting Kannada speaking people. “Our language has been insulted. We must show our anger by observing the bandh”, he added.

The MES had been committing crimes on innocent Kannadigas in the last 70 years and successive governments have utterly failed to keep them under check, claimed Nagaraj.

Meanwhile the Autorickshaw drivers and owners association has extended support to the proposed bandh. The 35,000 Uber/Ola cab drivers have also decided not to operate taxis.

Kannada flag burnt in Sangli

Even as the clamour to ban the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) for its alleged acts of vandalism grows in Karnataka, activists of MES and Shiv Sena burnt the Karnataka flag and shouted anti-Karnataka slogans in Sangli in Maharashtra. They threatened to enter Karnataka and take revenge for the desecration of the Chhatrapati Shivaji statue in Bengaluru.