What is common among leaders such as Y K Ramaiah, K N Nage Gowda, Byre Gowda, Siddaramaiah and Ramakrishna Hegde? They are all the victims of the crude politics of H D Deve Gowda. The latest to join the Deve Gowda Victims Club is the long standing intellectual face of Janata Parivar M P Prakash. But there is something more in Prakash than in others. The man who is capable of justifying anything and everything done by Deve Gowda and Sons by drawing similes from epics has been made a perfect scapegoat.
Relying heavily on Congress, Prakash started distancing from Gowda camp only to fall in to the Congress trap. At one point of time, though he had substantial numbers with him the Congress did not entertain his offer of forming an alternate government. Prakash was left in andhakar. He was neither here nor there. The former socialist had forgotten that Congress is the head master of the Dirty Tricks School. He became scapegoat there too!
Gowda and sons would not stop there. They tried to lure him back. They know well that they were losing the Lingayat face of the party. After having lost the backward face in Siddaramaiah the party can hardly afford to lose other influential faces. Had Prakash obliged it would have been at the cost of his personal honour and prestige. What next? Congress? Prakash -- the light -- is certainly groping in the dark!
Thy name is police!
No criticism and condemnation would be complete if it does not figure our horribly defunct, obnoxiously inefficient and monumentally corrupt men in khakhi. When it comes to Gulbarga police one would stumble for words they deserve. The police system in the sun city and perhaps elsewhere in the district is so rotten that people have stopped talking about it for it hardly serves any purpose. Though police are well equipped with men and machinery coupled with good “sambala” and not to talk of “gimbala” they plainly refuse to perform their duties.
They have a new found tactic to keep people away from their periphery. Not to receive complaints. The problem with them is that once the complaint is received they have to act upon it. One can come out with innumerable illustrations. The latest one is this. And it happened in the heart of the city under the very nose of an IGP, SP, Additional SP and scores of officers down the line.
The other day a Hero Honda motor bike of former corporator Arun Kumar Oza was stolen. He promptly went to Brahampur police station at 6 am and reported the matter. The police refused to take the complaint and asked him to come afterwards. At 7.30 am the complainant again went to the police station and again the same cop refused to accept the complaint asking him to come after 10 am. When the matter was brought to the notice of the most honourable SP he shouted down the line taking every one left and right. A DySP rushed to the police station and summoned the complainant. Instead of receiving the complaint and launching an investigation he went on to give a lecture on the problems of police. He revealed it was only the police who worked round the clock!
Intellectual games
The intellectuals are at it again. They are not only intellectuals, they are great thinkers and progressive souls. They are marching to Raj Bhavan and rolling out memorandums stealing the glare of cameras. The secular champions, wittingly or unwittingly, knowingly or unknowingly, are contributing their mite to the Congress cause. They are crying from rooftops urging the governor not to invite BJP to form the government. Well, they have been discharging their democratic responsibility as enlightened citizens.
But the problem with these intellectuals is they do not recognise values but thrive on ideology. Given the choice between values and ideology they would chose the latter albeit at the cost of the former. When the entire world grieved over JD(S) going back on its words of transferring power to its coalition partner BJP our terrific intellectuals drew vicarious pleasure from it. For a while the world had forgotten everything and was upset and bemused with the JD(S) playing the role of a betrayer by not keeping its words. Keeping words is one of our basic values and part of culture. The effect and impact of not keeping words on the conscience of the society can be illustrated by an incident.
A person asked a barber at what time he would open his shop in the morning. The barber said around 7.30 am. The customer wanted to have his haircut at 7 am and the barber agreed to open his shop at 7 am to facilitate his customer. The man was apprehensive and asked whether he (barber) meant what he said. Barber replied: “Sir, I am not Kumaraswamy to go back on my words.”
In the self styled secular intellectuals’ jargon it’s barbaric fundamentalism!
They never change
When the first ever Zilla Parishat meeting was held in 1987 at the Ambedkar Kalyan Mantap in Gulbarga no one had expected that it would be perfectly alright. It was marred by improper seating arrangement for the newly elected members. And there were no seats for the press corps. After due protest, makeshift arrangement was made for the fourth estate.
At the first ever meeting of the zilla panchayat held last week at the newly constructed modern meeting hall every one had expected that everything will be alright. But expectations were belied. History had repeated. The same chaos and confusion witnessed two decades ago had come to prevail. The message: Any change of its worth hardly takes place in Gulbarga. Media men had to resort to protest for not having proper seating arrangements for them. Even the elected members were not happy with their seats. The hall is constructed by our great engineers by employing modern technology at a cost of Rs 1 crore. The meeting had to be abruptly adjourned.
The adjourned meeting was held the next day; not in the new hall but at the old venue. Known devil is better than unknown angel. Though the new hall has become redundant and infructous the men responsible as usual have gone scot free.
