Educate your youngsters, Eshwarappa tells Kurubas

Education is the surest means of bringing development among the backward communities, K.S. Eshwarappa, deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, has said.

He was speaking at Malahalli village in Surpur taluk on Monday, where he participated in a ceremony of installing the idol and the ‘kalasa’ of the Malingaraya temple.

Communities should encourage more and more of its youth to pursuing higher education. That is how it can ensure comprehensive development, he said.

Community organisations must realise that the responsibility of developing the community lies with them as much as it does with the government, he said, while urging the Kuruba community to educate its children, especially girls.

Tracing the history of the Kuruba community, he said great personalities such as Kanakadasa had spoken against caste-based oppression.

His songs containing philosophical tenets are relevant even today, he said. Sangolli Rayanna succeeded on sheer merit and hard work, he added.

Yeddyurappa issue

Mr. Eshwarappa told presspersons that efforts were on to retain the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He expressed confidence that Mr. Yeddyurappa would stay with the party.

The Deputy Chief Minister said no one from the BJP would attend the Haveri convention, if at it was held. Mr. Yeddyurappa would not leave the BJP, and there would be no reason to organise the convention, he said.