BENGALURU: Following the Supreme Court order on the Cauvery issue, members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) tried to lay siege to Vidhana Soudha. The police, however, thwarted their attempt and detained them.
Over a hundred members of the organisation marched from the KRV office in Gandhinagar towards Vidhana Soudha. As the police stopped them at Gandhi Statue near Maurya Circle, the activists protested and stopped vehicular movement. Hence, the police, who were deployed in large numbers, took over 50 agitators into preventive custody by bundling them into BMTC buses and took them to CAR ground on Mysuru Road and released them after a few hours.
KRV president TA Narayana Gowda said the Karnataka government should take a firm stand and not release water. Urging the State Government not to follow the SC directive, Gowda said, “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should take a firm decision. Even if his government is removed, the leaders should stand with the farmers of the state.”
Stating that KRV will intensify the protests across Karnataka, Gowda said that KRV activists would show black flags to ministers and at official events of the State Government.
Meanwhile, several pro-Kannada organisations are contemplating calling for a Karnataka bandh. Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj said that a decision would be taken based on the State Government’s stand. “Once the government decides its future course of action, we will convene a meeting to decide the nature of
the protest,” Nagaraj told The New Indian Express.