"Mission Karnataka” begins with Diggy's ouster
A poll-bound Karnataka is all set to be led by younger leaders with the All India Congress Committee replacing veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh with Alappuzha MP K.C. Venugopal as the general secretary in-charge of the state.
After the Congress (under Singh's leadership) failed to form the government in Goa, despite emerging as the single largest party, the AICC anticipating that a similar hung verdict in the 2018 assembly polls in Karanatka is taking no chances.
Venugopal, a close confidante of AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be assisted by four party secretaries—Manickam Tagore, P.C. Vishnunadh, Madhu Yashki Goud and Sake Sailjanath.
Singh's exit does not come as a surprise to Karnataka Congress as senior leaders had expressed their anguish over Singh's inability to strike a chord with party workers.
In case of a hung verdict in the 2018 polls, the Congress Party is hoping to get into an alliance to form the government. And it seems to prefer a leader who can liaison with the JD(S). Old-timers recall Ghulam Nabi Azad's stint as the state in-charge in 1999, when the party led by S.M. Krishna and Mallikarjuna Kharge formed the government. Azad, with his good equations with H.D. Deve Gowda, had engineered a coalition, when the state ended up with a hung verdict in 2004 polls (and Congress had won only 65 out of the 224 seats).
BJP in Karnataka a divided house
Revolt in Karnataka BJP, even as the party is preparing for a saffron surge in the 2018 Assembly polls, has worried the central leadership. A Save-BJP rally organised by leader of the opposition in Legislative Council K.S. Eshwarappa, to resist the “dictatatorial tendencies” of the BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa has caused confusion among the cadres.
Months after BJP's national president Amit Shah declared Yeddyurappa as the chief ministerial candidate, the man raising the banner of revolt is Eshwarappa, a Kuruba leader from Yeddyurappa's own district—Shimoga. Eshwarappa, had earlier floated the Sangolli Rayanna Brigade to consolidate the backward classes and Dalit votes, in the hope of replicating the success of Lingayat strongman Yeddyurappa and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (Ahinda formula) who were catapulted to the CM's post. With Kuruba being the third largest community after Lingayat and Vokkaliga, Eshwarappa is banking on the numbers to emerge stronger within his party.
After Shah directed BJP national general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Muralidhar Rao to take stock of the situation, Rao who landed in Bengaluru held marathon meetings with party leaders and workers to prepare a report (to be submitted to Amit Shah).
The fallout of the meeting was that four BJP members—vice-presidents of state BJP, M.B. Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana (supporters of Eshwarappa) and Raitha Morcha vice-president M.P. Renukacharya and spokesperson G. Madhusudhan—were immediately relieved of their party responsibilities for holding “street talk”. The move sent shock wave across the party.
Sending out a strong message, Rao said, “I repeat and reiterate that there is no need for anybody to float any organisation outside the party—call it forum, call it brigade or give it any name.”
But this has helped little to end the animosity between the two leaders. The State Executive scheduled for May 6 and 7 at Mysuru is bound to witness more drama.
Blue boys club grows bigger
Mobile phones are proving to be weapons for public shaming of netas, at least in Karnataka. MLC Mahantesh Kavatagimath from Belagavi joined the league of politicians who have been publicly shamed for their habit of watching porn.
According to reports, Kavatagimath “accidentally” shared 56 photographs of porn stars on a Whatsapp group of reporters in Belagavi. The message went viral, and the MLC, realising his folly, immediately switched off his mobile and later sought an apology citing a technical hitch.
Last November, Primary and higher education minister Tanveer Sait was caught on TV camera allegedly viewing pornographic content on his phone during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Raichur.
Prior to this, three BJP ministers—Lakshmana Savadi, C. C. Patil and Krishna Palemar—had to quit their cabinet posts after they were caught on TV cameras allegedly watching porn on their cellphones inside the assembly. They were nicknamed as the Blue Boys of the Karnataka BJP. The netas definitely need a lesson on mobile etiquette, if not on morality.
A copycat government
An election year springs many “goodwill” gestures by political parties to appease different communities (read as votebanks). When Chief Minister Siddaramaiah suddenly decided to install the portrait of Basavanna—a 12th century social reformer, at all the government schools and departments, it was welcomed by his partymen who were worried over Siddaramaiah's increasing appeasement of Ahinda (minorities, backward classes and dalits) upsetting dominant castes.
As Basavanna is associated with the Lingayats—a dominant community in Karnataka, the partymen were hopeful of earning brownie points ahead of the polls. But the portrait has now caused major embarrassment to the government as veteran artist V.T. Kale, from Sandur in Ballari, is upset that no credit has been given to him.
On realising the faux pas, when the government officials reached the doorstep of the artist to felicitate him on his painting being selected, he refused to accept it. He insisted that he be given due credit for his art and that he expected no monetary benefit.
The government had selected the painting made in 2005, when they saw it at Muruga Mutt of Chitradurga. It is not known who is responsible for omitting the picture-credit while printing the portrait.
Millet magic
Imagine a new app that can help you with a healthy eating habit. A new millet recipe app, 'Millet Melodies' was launched recently during the three-day national trade fair - 'Organics and Millets 2017' held in Bengaluru.
The app which can now be downloaded on Android and iOS stores, gives out recipes for millet-based food – from pizzas, brownies and cakes to traditional roti, pakoda, halwa and payasams. Millets are known as the super food for their high content of protein, dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals such as iron, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, zinc, calcium and potassium, the overall consumption of organic products has reached 32% in India and 47% in the US.
Union minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman, who delivered the valedictory speech said, “The millet cultivation is growing and the challenge before the Indian market is to scale up aggregation, packaging and processing and the startups of Karnataka can play a crucial role in this sector.”
Said agriculture minister Krishna Byregowda, “The idea is to facilitate linkages between the organic farmers and the retailers for better price realisation for the produce. The market for organic products has crossed ₹4500 crore, including exports of ₹3,500 crore and the domestic market accounts for around ₹1,000 crore.”
“By 2020, you can expect organic market to touch Rs 10,000 crore. Bengaluru is the single largest market for organics, estimated at ₹250 crore. Karnataka was the first state to formulate a policy for organic farming—Savayava Bhagya Yojane. In the last four years, nearly 54,000 farmers have taken up organic farming across 63,677 hectares of land in the state. Millets are cultivated across 2.01 million hectares in Karnataka as we offer subsidy and bonus to encourage millet cultivation,” Gowda added.
Train gets green signal on Twitter
A tweet from Mysuru-Kodagu MP Prathap Simha to Railway minister Suresh Prabhu helped expedite a long ending project.
A special train will now carry office-goers from Mysuru to Bengaluru and back. The allotment of the project was pending before the ministry for the last 12 years and was approved by the railway board only last July. Simha's reminder on twitter helped get a positive response from Prabhu. The train is likely to commence its operation from may 13. The new train which will have state-of-the-art general class compartments named as “Deen Dayalu” coaches is bound to reduce the peak-hour congestion on the trains. The up and down trains will run between Hubbali and Mysuru (Ashokapuram Railway Station) and will halt at Mysuru for 15 minutes. The train coming from Hubbali will reach Bengaluru City Station at 5.45 pm, and reach Mysuru at 8.40 pm. The Mysuru-Hubbali train will leave Mysuru at 6 am to reach Bengaluru at 8.45 am.
Mother tongue in mid-air
You often hear the pre-flight announcements in either English or Hindi. But for the passengers onboard the inaugural flight of Indigo from Bengaluru to Mangaluru last week, the passengers were surprised to hear a pre-flight announcement in a familiar language. Captain Franz Joseph D'Sa greeted the passengers in English, Tulu and Konkani, making them “feel at home”. As the rest of the crew was also from Mangaluru, it created a regional ambiance too. The 63-second announcement is going viral on social media.
