EXPRESSING ANGER: Karnataka Rakshana Vedike activists ( Narayana Gowda group) staging a protest in Bangalore on Thursday. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, which has launched a series of protests against the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, on Thursday took out a procession of sheep as a metaphor to highlight the "submissive attitude" of the MPs from the State with regard to the Cauvery issue.

The novel protest was staged near the Mysore Bank Circle. The vedike alleged that the MPs had failed to protect the interests of the State by not effectively taking up the Cauvery issue with the Centre.

As there are 40 elected MPs from the State — 28 in the Lok Sabha and 12 in the Rajya Sabha — the vedike had planned to take out as many sheep in a procession.

But the police, faced with the prospect of 40 bovine denizens with no traffic sense, restricted them to four and ensured that vehicular traffic was not affected in the central business district.

Accordingly, the four animals, sporting neck tags bearing names of four Rajya Sabha members, were made to march from the Mysore Bank Circle.

The protest was organised by the T.A. Narayana Gowda faction of the vedike.

Not to be left behind, the members of the other faction of the vedike led by Praveen Kumar Shetty took off their shirts and staged a bare-chested demonstration.

With the slogan "Cauvery Nammadu" (Cauvery is ours) painted on their chest, 60 activists took out a procession from the Mahatma Gandhi statue on Mahatma Gandhi Road.

The police stopped and arrested them when they tried to march towards the Vidhana Soudha as prohibitory orders are in force in the area in view of the legislature session.

The police arrested about 150 people, led by Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha MLA Vatal Nagaraj, when they tried to storm the Raj Bhavan. As the police stopped the protesters near the GPO Circle, traffic was affected in the surrounding areas for some time.

Road blocked

About 300 people, belonging to Kannada, farmer and Dalit organisations, blocked the Bangalore-Mysore Highway near Kengeri to protest against the tribunal award. Traffic came to a halt on the highway for nearly 30 minutes, the police said.

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