Siddaramaiah resumes work

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s home office “Krishna” and the corridors of Vidhana Soudha, which wore a deserted look in the last few weeks, witnessed a flurry of activity with the general public making a beeline to these power centres to get their work done.

The administrative machinery also picked pace with the chief minister holding a review meeting on the drinking water situation in the State and chairing the State Cabinet meeting in the evening.

More than a hundred people gathered at Krishna since Monday morning to get an audience with Siddaramaiah. 

The chief minister has not been holding his weekly public interaction “Janata darshan” programmes ever since the model code of conduct came into force soon after the announcement of the election dates (March 5). Besides, Siddaramaiah had taken a break after a hectic election campaign schedule by getting himself admitted to a heath centre on the outskirts of Bangalore.

The general public had to wait for a few hours before Siddaramaiah started to meet them on Monday afternoon. Earlier in the day, he held a breakfast meeting with minister Ramalinga Reddy, H Anjaneya, M B Patil, MLAs K N Rajanna, R V Devaraj and K Venkatesh also met him.

Godman wants land

The day had its share of interesting incidents. A self-styled “swami” who had come to Krishna sought 10 acres of land at the CM’s village Siddaramanahundi. “I am into social service. Please allot me the land, I will work for people in distress,” the swami wearing saffron robes told the chief minister. A surprised and little amused Siddaramaiah said “Nodana bidappa” (let us see) and moved away.

Later the “swami” told reporters that his name was Ramamurthy, 27, a native of Andhra Pradesh and that he had committed himself to serving the people. He said he had converted from Hinduism to Christianity, to Buddhism and later to Islam and then back to Hindusim in a bid to serve the people. “I am waiting for the right opportunity,” he said.