Calling up Mother, Hitler, Gandhi before passing of Bill

The tabling of the Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Bill, 2014, in the Legislative Council got sidetracked into a rambling discussion that dragged Mother Teresa, Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi into its orbit.

It all began with Revenue Minister V. Srinivas Prasad making a reference, before piloting the Bill, that Opposition leader K.S. Eshwarappa had not allowed tabling of the Bill on Monday. He said the former Leader of the Opposition, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, was “like Mother Teresa” who took everyone along, while the incumbent was more like “Hitler”, who was always battle-ready.

Mr. Eshwarappa retorted by saying that he was quite willing to be dubbed Hitler or a dictator “to help the people’s cause”.

He said Indira Gandhi was called dictator during the Emergency and pointed out that Congress MLC V.S. Ugrappa had then gone to jail opposing her. He described Mr. Ugrappa as an “opportunist” who had switched sides. Agitated at this, Congress MLC Veeranna Mathikatti said there was no need to drag a “great leader” like the late Ms. Gandhi into the debate.

Raising names

The situation got more noisy when Mr. Eshwarappa said Mr. Prasad was “like Mahatma Gandhi”, whom the entire nation honoured. “Some people had an impression” that he was responsible for the Partition, he said, which led to Mr. Ugrappa saying that the statement amounted to disrespecting the Father of the nation.

It was only after Chairperson D.H. Shankaramurthy insisted that the debate be brought back to the Bill that there was a sense of order in the House.

Mr. Eshwarappa, while welcoming the Bill, said what was crucial was to set up committees — which look into applications on regularisation of unauthorised cultivation of government lands under the bagair hukum scheme — in all 224 Assembly constituencies. Mr. Prasad promised to do so before the next legislature session in Belgaum.

Bill passed in Council

The Bill, already passed in the Assembly, was later passed in the Council. It amends Section 94 B of the Land Revenue Act to extend the tenure of bagair hukum committees by two years.