The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A Speaker who can’t speak

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Wednesday, Nov 04, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A Speaker who can’t speak

Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar, who has emerged as a rallying point for the rebellion led by the Ministers-cum-mine owners from Bellary, has also become the focus of media attention.

Journalists made several visits to Cauvery, Mr. Shettar’s residence, all week. But, Mr Shettar, who is bound by the protocol of his office, did not utter a single word in the face of all the media frenzy. However, photographers and camerapersons were happy as they managed to get their footage. Not so reporters. “He is Speaker who does not speak,” despaired a frustrated journalist.

Renuka makes a point

Everyone knows the former Union Minister Renuka Chowdhary as a firebrand. However, she revealed her witty side to Bangaloreans last week when she was here to release a book on breast cancer. She said she loved being back in the city where she once zipped around on a motorcycle... “That was many years and many kilos ago!” she quipped.

She did not stop with that. In her own droll way, she blamed Bollywood and advertisements for typecasting Indian women as a helpless mother sewing clothes for her useless son, observing fasts and praying for her crooked husband who beats her in turn, and the young women who drool over a man’s armpits and fall for him instantly!

Though she kept the audience in splits, she also got them to think by astutely pointing out all the stereotypes.

Woman vs. woman?

Panchayat Raj Minister Shobha Karandlaje is a name that has cropped up every now then in all the discussion on the present imbroglio in the BJP Government in the State. But interestingly, it is Bellary MP J. Shantha’s comments, stating that Ms. Karandlaje is central to the current impasse, which has got the maximum airtime on TV channels, with dramatic graphics to boot.

No surprise there, considering that television channels spare no opportunity to reinforce stereotypes about women. Who hasn’t heard the good old adage about one woman being another woman’s worst enemy? If Ms. Shantha is the lone woman MP from Karnataka, Ms. Karandlaje is the lone woman Minister in the State Cabinet.

Rescue mission?

The numbers game between Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and Tourism Minister G. Janardhan Reddy continues in New Delhi and the opposing camps, as is their wont, fire pot-shots at each other.

It was in such a scenario that Minister for Labour Bache Gowda deadpanned Mr. Reddy of holding some legislators captive in some resorts in Hyderabad and Goa.

Though it was intended to draw sniggers, a Right to Information activist took it seriously.

“He (Bache Gowda) is a senior politician known for his sincerity. He will not make any accusations without having proof. The police should get the list of those held captive and have them released,” the activist wrote to the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police.

It is not known whether the ‘abductees’ themselves were keen to be rescued.

BHAGYA PRAKASH K., CHITRA V. RAMANI, BAGESHREE S. ,

RAGHAVA M.

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