Suresh, Ashwath in Ramnagara ruckus

Minister and Cong MP almost come to blows at function attended by CM.

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Ramanagara: In a major embarrassment to elected representatives, Karnataka Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan and the lone Congress MP in the Lok Sabha from the state, D.K. Suresh, almost came to blows in full public view at an event in the presence of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai here on Monday after the minister allegedly used an unparliamentary word.

The government event was to unveil the statues of BR Ambedkar and Bengaluru founder Kempegowda. In what seemed like a veiled attack on Congress leaders, Ashwath Narayan made an aggressive speech targeting opponents and claimed the BJP government was here to win the trust of the people and not to betray them, and challenged others to prove their work. Suresh rushed menacingly towards the minister but was prevented by police who avoided possible fisticuffs between the two Vokkaliga leaders. Both of them indulged in a wordy duel in the presence of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai with the minister snatching the mike when newly-elected MLC, S Ravi tried to counter him. Suresh staged a dharna in front of the dais but was convinced by Bommai to call it off.

Bommai, while addressing the gathering, said individual egos should not come in the way of respecting icons like Ambedkar and Kempegowda. Pointing out that he has come to Ramanagara for the first time as CM, he said, “I have come here to contribute to development.

The development will happen with everybody’s cooperation and not by one individual.”

Suresh later said he would only apologize to the CM for what happened and not to anyone else, and attacked the minister in his speech. “Are you challenging us on stage? ....Don’t talk about our culture, we have culture. Mr Ashwath Narayan, we need not learn(culture) from you,” he said. After the event, Congress workers tore up Narayan’s posters as a mark of protest and held up traffic on the busy Bengaluru-Mysuru National Highway.

Meanwhile, jumping to his brother Suresh’s defence, Congress President D K Shivakumar questioned Ashwath Narayan’s relationship with Ramanagara. “What has he or the BJP done for the district? It is sheer arrogance on the part of the minister.”

Narayan, a Vokkaliga, who was earlier the in-charge minister of Ramanagara, is at the forefront of the BJP’s attempts to make inroads into the district by taking on the ‘DK brothers’ (Shivakumar and Suresh).