Higher Education Minister GT Devegowda skips meet with HRD minister, raises eyebrows

The HRD Ministry had organised a meeting of  Javdekar with higher education ministers of 10 states, including Karnataka, through video conferencing.
HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar (File Photo| PTI)
HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar (File Photo| PTI)

BENGALURU: Higher Education Minister G T Devegowda skipped an important meeting with Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday afternoon as the language of conversation would be English, and he finds it difficult to converse in that the language, according to a senior official working closely with the minister.

At 2 pm on Friday, the HRD Ministry had organised a meeting of  Javdekar with higher education ministers of 10 states, including Karnataka, through video conferencing. The meeting was to discuss the celebrations planned for the 150th birth anniversary of Mahathma Gandhi on October 2. The same was scheduled in the state higher education minister’s daily engagements, and room number 118 at Vikasa Souda was booked for this.But the minister decided not to take part in the meeting.

“The minister had agreed to take part in the video conference meeting and everything was ready ... but at the last minute he decided to skip it just because he was wrongly advised by some people around him,” he said.

Senior officials of the Higher Education Department were supposed to accompany the minister for the video conference, but they did not even bother to take it forward in the absence of the minister as far as efforts to translate it for the minister was concerned. And when the minister decided to skip it, the officials did not even bother to communicate the same to the HRD Ministry.

This is not the first time that Devegowda is doing this. He had expressed the same when a foreign university delegation came to meet him just after he had taken charge of the department. It was one of the reasons for him initially refusing to take charge of the portfolio when it was allocated to him.Moreover, when the higher education  portfolio was allocated to him, he was trolled on social media for not completing his high school education.

S G Siddaramaiah, chairperson, Kannada Development Authority, said, “He should be confident and communicate in Kannada. If the Union minister wants to understand, let him get it translated.”
Meanwhile, several calls and SMS messages to Devegowda went unanswered while trying to seek his comments.

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