Wear different hats

By Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: Politicians wear different hats to suit the game. They play to the gallery to woo the voters with verses from the Vedas, Upanishads, characters from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

During the height of communal tension in some districts, KPCC President DK Shivakumar visited those places to take stock of the situation on behalf of the Congress party.

Keeping in view that a majority of voters are Hindus, he said he too was a Hindu and chants the verses. Before media persons could ask the next question, Shivakumar started reciting ‘Yada yada hi dharmasya’, the famous advice of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Kurukshetra battle in the epic Mahabharata. Of late, the senior Congress leader has started this in public, maybe to say that he too is a Hindu.

Another politician who is well versed with the Hindu scriptures is CM Ibrahim. He knows every vachana and also verses from the two epics.

Forced to eat humble pie
Politicians tend to pose before television channel crew and others ready to shoot garam masala episodes of officials being abused before everyone. Sometimes the officials at the receiving end just ignore it, but a few babus speak up against the netas. Holenarasipur MLA and former minister HD Revanna was forced to eat humble pie for telling a senior officer of veterinary department to go and graze the cattle that too in front of officers of other departments. Revanna, after seeing the TV crew, addressed the officer singularly and told him to go and graze cattle. The MLA was unhappy over the setting up of a truck terminal adjacent to a girls’ college.

The very next day the veterinarians association threatened to stall the work if Revanna failed to tender an apology for his remarks. Though the former minister tried to get away saying that he didn’t mean to hurt him, the association was steadfast in its demand. Later, Revanna apologised and ended the row.

Live gifts

Two kinds of gifts are presented to netas by their fans and followers. One, live gifts and the other, lifeless ones.

Leader of the Opposition in the State Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah is mostly presented with live gifts like sheep. Every month, the Congress leader gets not less than five sheep from his fans across the state.

People want him to take them to Bengaluru and look after them.

But most times Siddaramaiah flies from Bengaluru to districts of North Karnataka and sheep are not allowed on passenger flights.

So, he presents them to poor farmers, asking them to look after them well. A noble gesture indeed!