BENGALURU: The padayatra against the proposed Greater Bengaluru Integrated Township (GBIT), popularly known as the Bidadi Township, intensified on Monday, a day after it was launched under the leadership of JDS youth wing president Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
The protest witnessed high-voltage drama after police stopped the participants from entering Bengaluru, prompting Nikhil to announce that the protesters would lay siege to the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on August 18.
The participation of JDS supremo and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, coupled with his declaration that he would take the issue to its logical conclusion, provided a much-needed boost to the party’s campaign against the proposed township and the ruling Congress government headed by DK Shivakumar.
The 93-year-old JDS patriarch looked agile and hit back at Congress criticism of the JDS padayatra for calling it “prayaschita yatra” (penance padayatra), asserting that while age may have slowed his body, it has not weakened his mind or resolve. Gowda said that he would continue the fight for farmers’ justice and take it to its logical conclusion, even if he had to do so in a wheelchair.
Taking a swipe at Magadi MLA and minister HC Balakrishna, Gowda said, “Wait and see in the coming days who will actually have to face repentance. My body has aged, but not my mind. Even if it is in a wheelchair, I will take the struggle for farmers’ justice to its logical end. It has been three years to Congress ruling and another two years left and the people are watching its attitude. Let us wait and watch who will face the repentance — whether it is Congress or JDS,” he said.
Gowda asked CM DK Shivakumar why he was doing this project in one month after removing Siddaramaiah from the CM post.
He reiterated that Shivakumar was doing the project in haste for the Congress’ Delhi leaders. “Weren’t you (D K Shivakumar) the DCM for three years? Aren’t you the one who made Bengaluru five corporations(under GBA)?’’
At the padayatra when Nikhil was marching ahead along with thousands of JDS party workers, with some BJP workers as well, at Kanaminike, the police put up barricades and stopped them. The altercation between the protestors and the police resulted in tense moments, following which the police allowed them to march 1km further, which ended at Siri Convention Hall on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway. Nikhil informed that the struggle will resume at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on August 18 under the leadership of his grandfather HD Deve Gowda.
The government wants to snatch the land and has put pressure on the police to obstruct the march even as the farmers have been protesting in Byramangala for the past 517 days, he said.
“Yesterday, the CM made a fresh offer to the farmers of Rs 3 crore per acre from the earlier promise of Rs 2 crore. Farmers will not be victimised by your money; they will not give you even an inch of land. Do not measure self-respecting farmers in money, Chief Minister. You are the richest Chief Minister of the entire country. No one here will bow to the lure of your money,” Nikhil thundered.
He clarified that the JDS and the Gowda family were not jealous of Shivakumar, also a Vokkaliga, becoming CM as the latter was allegedly indulging in propaganda.”They are spreading false propaganda. Should we stand for the CM who has thousands of crores, or should we stand for the poor farmers? No one should lose courage. No matter how many obstacles there are, our struggle will not stop,” Nikhil said.
“You know the shock that happened in our house 15 days ago. Even in such a situation, Deve Gowda has come to stand by the farmers as it is righteous for him,” he said, referring to the death of his grandmother Chennamma.
As Home Minister Priyank Kharge criticised the padayatra saying it was being taken out to revive JDS and reestablish the Gowda family’s third-generation leadership, Nikhil hit back saying Gowda, with no political background, became PM, and the people will not accept him (Nikhil) just because he is his (Gowda’s) grandson (unless responding to the people’s plight).