BENGALURU: Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot took oath as the 19th Governor of Karnataka on Sunday. Political leaders of the state cutting across party lines participated in the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan.
Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, administered Gehlot the oath of office in the presence of outgoing Governor Vajubhai Vala, Karnataka Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, his cabinet colleagues, MPs and MLAs, Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar and senior officials of the state government.
All political differences seemed to have taken a break at the oath-taking ceremony. Leaders cutting across party lines met and greeted each other with broad smiles and warm handshakes. Leader of opposition in the Karnataka Assembly Siddaramaiah, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and the Chief Minister welcomed each other, while leaders from various parties -- even those who quit the JDS-Congress coalition and joined the BJP -- were seen sharing tables and a few jokes.
In keeping with this style of public appearance, 73-year-old Gehlot took the oath of office in Hindi sporting a Himachali cap. Within minutes, Kannada activists took to social media to criticise the newly appointed Governor for choosing to take the oath in Hindi. As if in response to the social media campaign, Gehlot took to his personal Twitter handle to tweet his oath in Kannada.
Gehlot succeeded 83-year-old Vala who held the post for seven years. Politically, Vala came under attack in May 2018 for inviting the BJP to form the government much to the chagrin of the Congress-JD(S) coalition, which had termed his action as that of a “Gujarati businessman”. He was also targeted by the Congress-JD(S) during H D Kumaraswamy’s trust vote in July 2019 for repeatedly seeking to interfere with Assembly proceedings by setting deadlines.