Hemavathi link canal protest: 3 MLAs among over 100 booked

The Gubbi police have booked more than 100 people, including three sitting MLAs, BJP and JD(S) leaders, seers, farmer leaders and Kannada activists, on charges of taking part in the protest at Hemavathi Express Link Canal work site despite the prohibitory orders.

MLAs B Suresh Gowda (Tumkur Rural), G B Jyoti Ganesh (Tumkur City) and M T Krishnappa (Turuvekere), former MLA Masale Jayaram and leaders S D Dileep Kumar, A Govindaraju, H S Ravishankar among others have been booked for violating prohibitory orders, causing damages to government property and provocative speech.

The names of the seers, however, were not mentioned in the FIR.

On Saturday, hundreds of people, including members of farmers and pro-Kannada organisations, violating prohibitory orders clamped within 10-km radius of the link canal work site, staged a protest.

During the protest, they dumped massive pipes in a trench, obstructed workers, damaged windshields and window panes of buses, the FIR said. The Gubbi police have registered 13 cases.

The protesters on Saturday demanded the shelving of the project. They alleged that diversion of Hemavathi water to Magadi and Ramanagara will lead to water crisis in the basin district Tumakuru.

Gubbi Congress MLA S R Srinivas said on Sunday that the technical committee, constituted during the meeting chaired by Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, to study the feasibility of the project, is merely an eyewash.

“The study is merely an eyewash. They will include their men in the technical committee. This will defeat the purpose. I have been opposing the project from day one. I will personally meet CM and deputy CM and try convince them not to go ahead to implement the unscientific project, Srinivas, also the KSRTC chairman, told reporters in Tumakuru