Christians under attack, what’s the CM doing?

NT Exclusive

Increasing acts of moral policing have the blessing of BJP govt, claims Cong strongman.

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: If there is one politician who is a natural crowd-puller, set to hog the limelight in the run up to the 2023 Assembly polls. it is KPCC President D.K. Shivakumar.

Fiercely ambitious with an uncanny ability to win poll battles, ‘DK’ as he is popularly known, has made no secret of his running feud with former CM Siddaramaiah for the numero uno position in the Congress which could catapult him to the CM’s gaddi if the party wins a majority in the next polls.

In a brief interaction with News Trail at the KPCC office on Queens Road where he is putting the last minute touches to a major padayatra that is designed to rattle the Bommai government , Shivakumar who is brimming with confidence with a spring in his step after the Belagavi session, did not pull any punches, directly blaming Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai for the recent rise in attacks on minority institutions across the state. “These acts of moral policing have the blessings of the incumbent government”, he fumed, reminding us of how he had seen this coming and had torn up up a copy of the Anti- Conversion Bill in the assembly to signal his unease over the development.

Thundering that there was no governance in the state after Bommai took charge with absolute lawlessness everywhere, DK said the CM’s “inflammatory statement” that ‘there will be action for every reaction’ (on moral policing in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district) has provided “a license to right wing activists to strike at will at the minority community and their institutions”.

Recently, a group of right wing workers barged into a school in Mandya and objected to the celebration of Christmas on the ground that the school did not celebrate Ganesha festival. “This is really shocking and disgusting, the government has totally failed to rein in such miscreants”, said the Congress leader adding, “I squarely blame the CM for whatever is happening in the state ‘’.

On his absence from the Assembly during a discussion on the contentious Anticonversion bill, DK said he had scheduled a puja at the Bhagandeshwara Temple in Virajpet taluk of Kodagu much in advance assuming that the government would table the bill on the first day of the winter session in Belagavi. But, the government deliberately delayed it by a day. “I registered my protest by tearing a copy of the draft bill in the House,” he reiterated.

“I had to rush to Kodagu to perform the puja before launching the 170 km padayatra from Mekedatu to Bengaluru. The government could have passed an ordinance instead of tabling the bill” he quipped.

The Congress chief did look a bit exhausted after attending a slew of programmes organized in Tumakuru ahead of the padayatra that kicks off from January 9 to 19, 2022 but there is no mistaking the fact that the party under Shivakumar is brimming with confidence about bouncing back to power on its own after a 10-year-gap. The padayatra is intended to pressurise the state government to take up work on constructing a balancing reservoir at Mekedatu in Kanakapura taluk of Ramanagar which has become a bone of contention with Tamil Nadu.

Giving details of the padayatra, he said, “ We will walk 16 km to 18 km daily. We have restricted the number of participants to avoid chaos on the road in Kanakapura taluk before hitting the Bengaluru-Mysuru National Highway. Only representatives from the Cauvery command area like Mysuru, Mandya, Tumakuru, Bengaluru and Hassan are attending. Thousands of people cannot be part of a padayatra in Covid times. This project is not going to benefit my taluk at all. In fact, my agricultural land will be submerged. The biggest beneficiary will be Bengaluru where people in apartments still buy water in tankers daily”, Shivakumar said.

The fears of Tamil Nadu are unfounded as Karnataka cannot utilize a drop of water once it crosses Mekedatu, he explained. The proposed reservoir will benefit Tamil Nadu more than Karnataka. The Centre had cleared a Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the scheme long ago but it is stuck with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Ecology since some tracts of forest land will get submerged. Tamil Nadu is unnecessarily objecting to the project, he said adding that the padayatra is the first step towards launching a major battle for its implementation.