There was poor response in Udupi district to the State-wide band call supported by the State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding that Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy implement the pledge made in the manifesto of the Janata Dal (Secular) to waive the loans of farmers, on Monday.
The Karnataka State Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and private inter-district, service and city buses operated as usual.
Business establishments, educational institutions and government offices functioned normally. In fact, routine activities in the city went on normally.
Various units of the BJP staged protests on the issue of loan waiver at different places in the district. In Udupi too, members of the district unit of the BJP took out a procession from Jodu Katte to the Clock Tower.
Speaking on the occasion, K. Raghupati Bhat, MLA, said that the Janata Dal (Secular) had promised to waive loans taken by farmers from nationalised banks in its manifesto.
After making such as promise in the manifesto, Mr. Kumaraswamy had backtracked over the issue and was now finding excuses to escape from the promise. He was now saying that he had to consult his ally, the Congress.
By so doing, he was betraying the trust of the farmers of the State, he said.
Mattar Ratnakar Hegde, president of the district unit of BJP, said that the Congress-Janata Dal(S) government was an unholy alliance between two parties that did not enjoy the mandate of the people. The people’s mandate was for the BJP, which emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly.
Now, the alliance partners were fighting over Cabinet portfolios and were least bothered about waiving loans of farmers. This showed the utter lack of concern they had for the farmers, he said.
Nalini P. Rao, president of the Udupi Taluk Panchayat, Udaykumar Shetty, Harishram, Raghavendra Kini, Manjula Prasad, Raghavendra Uppoor, BJP leaders, were present.
According to the District Police Control Room, no untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the district and about 20 shops voluntarily shut down shutters in Hemmady village in favour of the bandh.
