The Congress government in Karnataka appears adept at backtracking on bold decisions almost immediately after taking them.
An amendment Bill tabled in the recently concluded legislature session on giving the government the power to takeover religious mutts that are “mismanaged” is already on its way to the incinerator with the Chief Minister himself announcing that they won’t push it forward. The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and seers of many powerful mutts were up in arms against the proposed amendment, dubbing it “anti-Hindu”.
The argument of Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra that such a Bill was necessitated by a commitment made to the Supreme Court (ironically by the previous BJP government) and that it did not automatically mean government gunning for mutts was drowned in the cacophony of opposition.
Not very long ago, a legislation proposed against superstitious practices suffered a similar fate. The law was to be modelled after the ordinance in Maharashtra, but the Karnataka government put the very idea in deep freezer following opposition. Again, it was the BJP and a section of religious heads that saw the move as “anti-Hindu”.
If the government is not convinced of its own stand on issues and decidedly has cold feet, why bother taking bold steps in the first place?
Venkaiah’s wits
Good speakers are always a pleasure to listen to. Even when they may have kept people waiting for over two hours and all you want to do is get back to office and quickly sum up the core of what they would utter.
Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, who barely made it to Bengaluru out of Delhi’s political fog last week, did not give good copy journalistically speaking. But he did regale a rapt FKCCI gathering with his wit and cheeky wisecracks.
Waxing about migrations and his department’s housing-for-all challenge, Mr. Naidu reasoned that urbanisation is a worldwide headache. “People are moving from rural to urban areas. It’s a reality. Look at me. I, too, have moved. From rural development to urban development [he held that charge in the then Vajpayee government].”
At another juncture, he recalled Mahatma Gandhi’s much admired model for the nation’s progress. “Gandhiji said, ‘back to villages’. Indeed, people are following it to the word. They are showing their back to villages.” For his favourite whipping boy — the Congress — Mr. Naidu reserved a few pithy one-liners in his language Telugu.
Facility sans list of beneficiaries
The Kolar district officer for the Welfare of Disabled and Senior Citizens was at the receiving end at a function organised to distribute cheques to persons with physical disabilities.
The Kolar Zilla Panchayat (ZP) had organised the function on December 22. But the department had not prepared the list of beneficiaries at all. Irked over officer’s laxity, three women members of the ZP, including president Rathnamma, took the officer, H.C. Nagamani, to task for her failure to prepare the list and statistics regarding number of persons with physical disabilities.
Members Mangamma and Chowdeshwari too were unhappy on the manner in which the function was conducted without basic information about eligible persons. The ZP spent 3 per cent of the grants for the welfare of such persons. Ms. Rathnamma asked, “How can the function be organised without the list? Why is the assistance being given only to a select few persons?
Ms. Nagamani, who appeared to be nervous for the moment, said the list of beneficiaries would be prepared and submitted shortly. Left with no alternative, the ZP went ahead with the function and distributed cheques to five beneficiaries.
Reaching out to the needy
Prakash Babanna Hukkeri, MP for Chikkodi in Belagavi district, has distinct qualities compared to fellow politicians in the Congress. The six-time MLA and two-time Minister in Karnataka, has been always ahead of others in reaching out to the needy and empathising with them. He won the hearts of the people for undertaking massive relief during the 2005 and 2009 floods in north Karnataka.
On Thursday last, the MP was the first one to rush to Mudagai village in Khanapur taluk where residents of the villages abutting the forest area were protesting against the district administration after a 23-year-old pregnant woman was mauled to death by a tiger. Besides pacifying the angry residents, he managed to get an additional compensation of Rs. 2 lakh to the bereaved family.
After Mr. Hukkeri’s intervention, the government issued shoot-at-sight orders against killer-tiger. Other political leaders, including district in-charge Minister Satish L. Jarkiholi, were found missing from the scene. Now, the district administration has formed five teams to capture the wild cat in the forest area.
