‘My mother is serious’: Congress MLA Kusuma Shivalli weeps in video meet

Senior Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar were in for a rude shock at a video conference Monday when Kundgol MLA Kusuma Shivalli started weeping over her mother’s precarious health condition due to Covid-19.

“My mother isn’t well...she’s serious. What do I do? I’m tense,” Kusuma said in a video call with all the party’s legislators on Karnataka’s Covid-19 situation. “Now, what do you want me to do?”

To this, Shivakumar, the party president, urged her to stay strong and instil confidence in her constituents. “See what KIMS (Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences) needs...let people know that you’re showing concern,” he advised.

Read: 24 Covid-19 patients dead after Chamarajanagar hospitals run out of oxygen

That’s when Kusuma revealed that her mother was denied admission in KIMS. “They asked us to get out. They showed neglect when I took my mother there,” she said, crying uncontrollably, as other legislators tried to calm her down.

Shivakumar pointed out that the current KIMS director Ramalingappa Antaratani was appointed because her husband, the late CS Shivalli (former Kundgol MLA), wanted him there.

Siddaramaiah got Ramalingappa on the phone and asked him to admit the MLA’s mother immediately.

Also read: Two Bengaluru hospitals issue oxygen SOS, say supply will run out in a few minutes

About two hours later, Siddaramaiah called up Kusuma to check and found that an ambulance had come to ferry her mother.

“Her mother has coronavirus. Being a sitting MLA, KIMS Hubli didn’t give her a bed,” Siddaramaiah told reporters. “If MLAs face this, what’ll happen to poor people? She was weeping in the video conference. The situation is horrible.”