Congress lawmakers storm out of KDA meet over RSS reference

Congress lawmakers on Wednesday stormed out of a meeting of the Kannada Development Authority, objecting to a resolution passed by the RSS to promote regional languages in an official memorandum submitted to the Centre for promotion of Kannada.

Seven Congress members boycotted the meeting protesting against the inclusion of a resolution of a 'private organisation' in the memorandum that had references to official documents.

"The entire memorandum has reference of official documents supporting each proposals, but one document related to a RSS resolution was not required at all. We are upset with the Authority for using a private organisation and that too RSS' resolution as reference for promoting Kannada language," Rajya Sabha member M V Rajeev Gowda told reporters here.

KDA Chairman T S Nagabharana defended the inclusion of the RSS resolution contending that it stressed on promotion of all Indian languages and that there was nothing wrong in using it as a reference.

Former KDA Chairman L Hanumanthaiah wondered why the Authority had singled out RSS when there were many private organisations working for promotion of Kannada language.

"RSS works for promoting Hindi and Sanskrit. This shows the intention of the government," Hanumanthaiah said. Apart from Gowda and Hanumanthaiah, other Congress leaders who attended the meeting are Oscar Fernandes, G C Chandrasekhar, B K Hariprasad, Syed Nasir Hussain, and D K Suresh.

"Opposing for the sake of opposition is not good. Congress should look at the content of the resolution. It should not oppose just looking at the name RSS in the memorandum," film personalities Prakash Belavadi and Malavika Avinash said.

In its memorandum, the KDA has requested the Centre to set up a National Recruitment Agency to conduct common eligibility tests for hiring non-gazetted staff to banks and central government departments in scheduled languages of constitution apart from Hindi and English.