Wanted: A ‘green’ candidate
Green activists in Dakshina Kannada, who have been fighting the Yettinahole and Netravathi diversion projects, are searching for suitable candidates to take on the Congress and BJP in the Assembly elections. Coming together under Sahyadri Sanchaya, a registered body, they want to field their own candidates in three constituencies. They had hoped to zero in on candidates by mid-February, but that was not to be.
Apparently, a few leaders of non-political organisations who were not part of the campaign have now sent feelers to the activists and offered to stand for elections. One of them is a farm organisation leader. The greens now wonder if these volunteers want to get a public platform for themselves or expect them to finance their poll campaigns.
Dinesh Holla, convener of the Sanchaya, said they are looking for candidates who have the charisma and the money to face the election apart from identifying themselves with the campaign. The search will continue for another fortnight, he said.
Verbal war over liquor
Babaleshwar in Vijayapura is witnessing a war of words over the free flow of liquor. Supporters of Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil and his BJP rival Vijugouda Patil have been trading charges against each other. The BJP says that the other is wooing voters with gifts and the Congress says the rivals are offering liquor to voters.
Mr. Vijugouda Patil’s supporters alleged that the Minister was distributing bags, helmets and steel plates among the voters of his constituency. The women supporters of the Minister countered them saying it was the BJP leader who had distributed substandard liquor there. When a few journalists asked the women — who say they are teetotallers — how they could judge its quality, the women were caught off-guard. Further, asked if they preferred to have good liquor supplied, they had no answer.
Meanwhile, the women supporting Mr. Vijugouda Patil did not wish to be silent.
At a counter news conference, they denied that their leader had distributed low quality liquor. Asked if he had distributed good quality liquor, it was the turn of this lot to turn speechless.
Whither reforms in higher education!
The Congress government passed several Bills related to higher education during the budget session of the State legislature, which ended on Friday. Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayaraddi ( in picture ), instead of tackling State-run institutions that are ailing, pushed Bills related to establishment of private universities — and without much debate. The result: reforms in higher education that he had promised on becoming Minister remain largely on paper. The Opposition BJP questioned the need for hurriedly passing the Bills when nine universities are without a Vice-Chancellor and over 400 government-run colleges have no principal. S. Suresh Kumar, BJP MLA, reminded the House of the pathetic situation of students of Bangalore University during the recent convocation. There were no gold medals for toppers, and the Higher Education Minister and the Chancellor remained absent for the convocation. The Minister justified them and said the Bills have no connection to vacancies in institutions.
Govt.’s true lies?
Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar ( in picture ) has ridiculed the government for unabashedly claiming credit for the State’s achievements in private as well as public sectors. Referring to the huge hoardings on IT exports that came up during the Prime Minister’s visit to Bengaluru earlier this month, Mr. Shettar wondered what role the government had in Karnataka being No. 1 State in IT exports.
The top rank was only owing to the hard work of software companies in the State; Karnataka was also at the top during the previous governments of S.M. Krishna and B.S. Yeddyurappa, he remarked. Instead, he suggested, that the Siddaramaiah government display the crime statistics of the State and Bengaluru.
Raviprasad Kamila
Firoz Rozindar
Nagesh Prabhu
