BENGALURU: This weekend was oddly reminiscent of the recently concluded ICC World Cup finals. After watching the political crisis unfold in Karnataka for the past two weeks, government officials are now gearing up to tune into the new innings, that of Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. On Friday, the day of his swearing-in, most government offices were empty after 3 pm. With Saturday a holiday (fourth Saturday), officials had a good reason to rush home early.
“We were waiting in front of the BBMP office for more than two hours and found that most of the officials were not there. Most of them said that today they were busy watching the political developments and no officials will be present to do our work,” said Ramalingappa H N, a resident of Srinagar.
Meanwhile, police officials were in for a surprise on Friday morning when they received orders from the top brass ordering them to be present at Raj Bhavan for bandobast duty. More than 2,000 policemen were deployed around the secretariat. Many police stations wore a deserted look on Friday as almost all the staff were near Vidhana Soudha.
“Once we received orders, we arranged men and deployed them around the Central Bengaluru area,” a senior police officer said.