The state government has nominated Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s son Dr Yathindra for the post of chairman to the Varuna Assembly constituency Housing Programmes Awareness Committee.
The move comes in view of giving sanctity to Dr Yathindra chairing meetings of government officials. His public appearances and issuing directions to officials has now got a legal sanction.
The post is usually adorned by MLAs as he or she is responsible for implementing all housing schemes and projects in the respective constituency. However, there have been examples of MLAs asking the government to nominate somebody close to them if they are not able to monitor the activities of the committee regularly.
Following the directions of the Governor on April 24 itself, an order to this effect was issued by Housing department Under Secretary-II C S Shivakumaraswamy.
The same day an attempt was made during the meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee chaired by MP R Dhruvanarayan and a proposal was placed to nominate Yathindra to the committee in place of a Grama Panchayat member.
It was also said that he would be nominated to the Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) review committee which meets under the chairmanship of District in-charge Minister.
Siddaramaiha’s elder son Rakesh passed away on July 30, 2016 due to multiple-organ failure at the University Hospital in Brussels, Belgium during his visit to the Tomorrowland Fest. Since then Siddaramaiah has been trying to groom his younger son Dr Yathindra to become a politician.
“Rakesh had politics in his blood. Without any official designation, he knew how to handle both politicians and officials. He had high ambitions in politics and was nurturing the Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency which was earlier represented by Siddaramaiah. He had even raised a farm at T Katur near Udbur under the constituency and had constructed a ultra-modern house there. He used to spend half his time in Varuna Assembly constituency represented by his father and half his time in Chamundeshwari,” said an insider in the Congress.
He said that, “Dr Yathindra however, lacks that acumen. He is being taken for a ride by both partymen and officials. How far this official position will help him evade exploitation is yet to be seen. But some senior Congress leaders, one of them a think-tank, have been taken into confidence to teach him the ropes of the ‘trade’.”
“Since the death of his elder son, Siddaramaiah has been trying to consolidate his position in both the Congress party and in Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts with more vigour so as to provide a strong foundation for his son. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the father-son duo are likely to share Varuna and Chamund- eshwari constituencies on Congress tickets. Siddaramaiah is most likely to choose Chamun- deshwari which is comparatively a difficult terrain,” said a BJP leader.
