Gowda stages a fast for development of Hassan

Gowda said that he would hold a hunger strike for two to three days in front of the residence of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa in Bangalore on June 27, if the Government does not respond by then.

More than 1,000 JD(S) workers, including the MLAs from the district, besides members of the Zilla, Taluk Panchayats and City Municipal Council took part in the dharna. Gowda was seated, along with the others, under a shamiyana from 9.30 am, when he began the hunger strike. He did not even drink water during the stir.

“The BJP government has discontinued all the projects initiated in Hassan district when Kumaraswamy was the chief minister and Revanna the district incharge minister. The bills of contractors executing  the building work of the government medical and engineering colleges have not been cleared. There is also a conspiracy to shut down the nursing college in the district,” Gowda alleged.

The former prime minister said that the airport work had been stalled in the district and compensation had not been paid to potato farmers who suffered losses to the tune of Rs 250 crore in the last four years.

The government had also purposefully stopped land acquisition for the Bangalore-Mangalore railway line, Gowda said. Noting that Yeddyurappa had not even replied to the letters written to him on the development of the district, the JD(S) supremo said this was nothing but politics of vendetta.

On coming to know through the media about the chief minister’s appeal to him to give up the fast and his promise to visit the district for reviewing development works, Gowda said: “They should send a written statement, through e-mail or fax to the DC office. I will suspend the stir if such a statement comes through.”

H D Revanna, H K Kumaraswamy and other MLAs from the district, former Rajya Sabha member H K Javare Gowda took part in the protest. Deve Gowda’s protest ended after a memorandum was submitted to the Governor through the DC at 5 pm.