Padayatra halted: Did Cong top brass sound the alarm on Covid?

By Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: What made the Congress Party defer its tenday Mekedatu Padayatra after it completed five days? Was it because of the Karnataka High Court’s observation or the explosion of Corona positive cases in the State?

No, say sources who attribute the Congress decision to the intervention of the party high command. The padayatra had started drawing a lot of flak in the last three to four days after Corona cases breached the 15,000 mark in the state capital. Seeing thousands of ‘maskless’ people walking along with their leaders from Sangama, the confluence of the River Cauvery and River Arkavathy in Kanakapura taluk since Sunday last, citizens took to social media to attack the grand old party for its ‘indifferent’ attitude towards Covid Appropriate Behavior (CAB) and the leniency of the State Government in allowing the opposition party to take out the padayatra.

The BJP and Congress were also involved in an exchange of words on facebook, instagram and twitter holding each other responsible for the ‘mess’. Citizens groups also got into action posting pictures of Congress leaders walking with hordes of supporters on the dusty roads of Ramanagar district with no mask on and not caring to maintain social distance. The aam aadmi started questioning the government for slapping cases and seizing vehicles of curfew violators but keeping their eyes closed to violations during the padayatra.

A senior Congress leader told News Trail that AICC General Secretary and In- Charge of Karnataka Affairs, Randeep Singh Surjewala who came to know about the negative publicity the padayatra was drawing, dialled Shivakumar to know what was happening. Shivakumar’s view questioning the authenticity of the spiralling Covid cases did not go down well with Delhi leaders, it is learnt.

Besides, Opposition leader Siddramaiah, Shivakumar and Bengaluru Rural MP D.K.Suresh insisting that the padayatra would go on without paying attention to the increasing Covid cases in Bengaluru, was also taken seriously. Surjewala is said to have briefed former AICC President Rahul Gandhi and AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra about the criticism the padayatra had atttracted in social media.

Delhi leaders knew they were in an embarrassing position So, they asked Surjewala to direct Shivakumar to stop the padayatra.