JD(S) terms Soudha event a circus, skips photo shoot with President

Upset over the way its leaders were treated, the JD(S) on Wednesday boycotted a group photograph session with President Ram Nath Kovind organised to mark the diamond jubilee of Vidhana Soudha.

JD(S) legislators left the Vidhana Soudha in a huff soon after Kovind’s address to members of both the Houses of the legislature. They did not participate in any other event in the day.   

“There was no clarity on where we were to be seated,” JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy told reporters. “It was so badly organised that we were asked to stand at the rear. We didn’t want to create a scene by making someone else in the front get up. So, we just walked away.”

Senior JD(S) MLC Basavaraj Horatti likened the diamond jubilee event to “a private wedding function” and called it “a circus.” Horatti rued that there was breachin protocol and took umbrage at Kovind missing out on JD(S) supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda’s name during his speech in which he recalled some of Karnataka’s prominent chief ministers. “During the photo session, there was no preference to senior legislators. I’m the senior-most member, but they didn’t care about protocol.”

Kumaraswamy had recently announced that no JD(S) legislator would eat lunch or drink water served as part of the diamond jubilee to protest the Legislature Secretariat spending Rs 10 crore on the event. He quipped that he did not see “any extraordinary flower decoration” even as the Secretariat had earmarked Rs 75 lakh on flowers alone.

“It is vindictive behaviour of Secretariat officials that no seating arrangement was made for Kumaraswamy for the photo shoot.

“This was done on purpose to insult him because he criticised the lavish spending on the event,” JD(S) MLC Ramesh Babu said.