A pall of gloom descended on Kalaburagi district on Thursday morning after news of the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh’s death reached here.
Dharam Singh breathed his last on Thursday morning at M.S. Ramaiah Medical and Teaching Hospital in Bengaluru. As news spread, Congress leaders rushed to his residence in Sharan Nagar here.
Sources close to Dharam Singh’s family said that the body would be flown from Bengaluru to Bidar on Thursday evening by special flight and it would be taken by road to Kalaburagi. The body would be kept for public viewing at Nutan Vidyalaya Grounds throughout Thursday night and till Friday noon. The last rites will be held in an agricultural field at Nelogi village in Jewargi taluk on Friday evening.
Meanwhile, some of his followers suggested that the last rites be performed at his field in Naganahalli on the outskirts of the city, while people from Jewargi taluk opposed the decision. They said that whatever heights the leader had reached in the last four decades was because of the support of people from Jewargi taluk and that they wanted their leader’s last rites to be held at the place of his birth.
Minister for Tourism and ITBT Priyank Kharge and MLC Allamprabhu Patil visited his residence in Kalaburagi. They also visited the Nutan Vidyalaya Grounds, where the body would be kept for public viewing, and instructed the officials concerned and the Police Department to make all necessary security arrangements keeping in view that a large gathering of Congress and senior leaders from the Centre would attend the rituals on Friday.
Life-size photos, flexes and posters of Dharam Singh were erected in the village and across Jewargi taluk; people conducted bhajans in Nelogi and surrounding villages.
Sources said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his Cabinet colleagues would reach Kalaburagi on Friday morning by special helicopter for the last rites.
