BENGALURU: Bowing to public outcry and criticism in the media, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has shot down the proposal of the Legislature Secretariat to gift gold biscuits to legislators as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Vidhana Soudha. He also cut the budget allocated for the event from `26 crore to Rs10 crore.Expressing his displeasure at the plans, Siddaramaiah said there was no need to present any expensive mementoes to the legislators.
Earlier, each of the 300 legislators was to be presented a gold biscuit costing Rs 50,000 as a memento and the secretariat officers with a silver plate. Also, the initial plan to have a two-day celebration on October 25 and 26 has been curtailed to just one day, October 25. Conveying his views to Chairman of the Legislative Council D H Shankaramurthy and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly KB Koliwad, who called on him, Siddaramaiah also expressed his inability to grant `26 crore for the event and asked them to limit it to `10 crore.
With the event now being reduced a single-day show, Shankaramurthy told Express, “Cultural programmes on the steps of Vidhana Soudha were to be held on October 26. We will now reschedule those programmes for the evening of October 25.”
The Rs 10 crore jubilee celebrations of the Vidhana Soudha will start with President Ramnath Kovind’s address to the members of state legislature. After lunch, members will discuss various issues related to the state, its language, history and progress made in various sectors, and cultural programmes will held on the steps of Vidhana Soudha in the evening.