TUMKUR: The sets were put up in traditional Kerala style and the spellbinding performance by the drummers called from Kerala left every one asking for more.
Tumkur was lit with festivities as it witnessed the big fat wedding of four-time BJP MLA, Sogadu Shivanna's son at his 6.5 acre home on Sunday.
Sources said while the bridegroom S Siddalinga Swami, a law graduate from V V Puram college, rode on a decorated horse cart specially bought from Chennai, the bride Chaitra, an MBA graduate from a premier British institution and daughter of a Chikmagalur businessman waited at the pandal specially decorated by artists from Bangalore.
Meanwhile, a few BJP workers dumped party work and the pourakarmiks of Tumkur Municipality put cleaning work aside to labour with lieutenant, Bavikatte Naganna, brother-in-law of Tumkur MLA Sogadu Shivanna.
More than 20,000 visitors - irrespective of their caste, creed and socioeconomic status - relished on more than five varieties of sweets, including the delicacy ‘kashi halwa’.
The week long wedding was held at the premises of a new bungalow worth Rs 5 crore, in the Lingapura area on the outskirts of the city - owned by flat beans grower turned millionaire Shivanna and sources said that the ceremony cost Rs 1 crore.
Further, political bigwigs such as Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and Transport Minister R Ashok graced the occasion.
Ministers Jagadish Shettar, S Suresh Kumar, M P Narendraswami were also among the other VVIP guests, apart from Excise Minister Renukacharya, who flew in an helicopter just to be there.
From rags to riches
Shivanna’s assets multiplied from a few lakhs in 2004 to many crores by 2008 polls, though he had only a brief stint as the sericulture minister in the BJP-JD(S) coalition government, as he declared.
Many wondered if his avarekayi (flat beans) business alone was responsible for him to be able to afford such a high-budget wedding of his son.
