Pro-Kannada outfits to call for state bandh on June 12

Pro-Kannada organisations will call for a state-wide bandh on June 12 to press for an early resolution of the Mahadayi dispute, a permanent solution to the water scarcity in the arid regions of Karnataka, waiver of farm loans and externment of Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) functionaries from Belagavi.

As part of the bandh, more than one lakh people will take part in a rally from Town Hall to Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Vatal Nagaraj, the president of Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha, told journalists here on Monday. Pro-Kannada organisations will block trains and national highways besides trying to picket Goa which is a party to the Mahadayi dispute. The CPI-backed bus drivers’ union has extended support to the bandh, he added.

“It’s shameful that two years of peaceful Satyagraha for resolution of the Mahadayi issue has moved neither the Union nor the state government,” he said and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi take personal interest to resolve the issue.

He also urged MPs from all the three parties in the state to raise the issue in Parliament by rising above party politics. Nagaraj also demanded a White Paper from the state government on the development work undertaken by successive regimes in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region since the unification of the state in 1956.