Monday, Oct 14, 2002
Monday, Oct 14, 2002 |
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Karnataka
By A.Jayaram
Congress sources say that the samithi took the decision on its own and not because of any persuasion by the Government. The large turnout at the Mandya rally on Saturday and the impassioned address of Mr. Krishna also seem to have had a sobering effect on the samithi. That the panel was prepared for a climbdown from its extremist stand was clear from the fact that its leader and former MP, G.Made Gowda, met the Chief Minister who was midway through his padayatra at Maiganahalli (near Ramanagaram) on October 8. It is stated that the samithi found to its dismay that the Chief Minister's padayatra had taken the wind out of its sails. The people, who were first with the samithi, had deserted it to flock around the Chief Minister. Apart from his own popularity, the Chief Minister had with him the crowd-puller for the Mandya youth, the film star and Congress MP, Ambarish. The agitation by the samithi had been devoid of all meaning especially after the State Cabinet decided at its meeting on September 19 not to implement the Cauvery River Authority's September 9 order to release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu every day. The continued agitation had left everyone wondering as to what the samithi was demanding of the Government. The violence perpetrated by the agitators as when they burnt the engine of the Swarna Jayanti Express bound for Delhi had earned nothing but wrath and contempt for them (agitators) from the people. Earlier was the less publicised incident when some malcontents tried to set fire to a railway bogie with passengers bound for Bangalore at the Mandya station. It was providence that thwarted a "Godhra like incident." The firm stand and the tough talk by ministers and Congress leaders who attended a meeting at the Ramanagaram Inspection Bungalow on the night of October 8 not to be cowed down by the threats from the samithi to disturb the padayatra, is also stated to have influenced the decision to suspend the agitation. It was evident that the samithi had few friends outside Mandya District, especially after it resorted to the blocking of the Bangalore-Mysore highway for several days. The thinking public had few sympathies for the samithi which had some well-known anarchist elements advocating utter contumacy -- deriding the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the Centre and the State governments. One or two of the organisations which had jumped on the samithi's bandwagon had lost even the single member representation they had in the State Legislative Assembly, which speaks of their hold over the people. It was also seen that local political rivalries and frustrations had helped also sustain the agitation to some extent. Mr. Made Gowda, a former Congress MP and minister, quit the Congress on being denied the party ticket for the 1999 parliamentary elections. The Congress chose Mr. Ambarish, who was earlier with the Janata Dal and the former Prime Minister, H.D.Deve Gowda. Mr. Made Gowda himself had been elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1978 on the Janata ticket. But he defected to the Congress to become Minister for Forests in the Gundu Rao Cabinet. The leader of one of the factions of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, K.R.Puttannaiah, had lost his Pandavapur Assembly seat in the 1999 election.
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