Date:22/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/22/stories/2006092205650400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Shoba Yatra: Chief Minister urged to clarify

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: Sauharda Karnataka has strongly condemned State Bharatiya Janata Party president D.V. Sadananda Gowda's statement that Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has agreed, in principle, to the party's demand to hold Shoba Yatra at the Bababudangiri shrine.

At the press conference held here on Thursday, Ravi Varma Kumar pointed out that Mr. Kumaraswamy had been "conspicuously silent" on Home Minister M.P. Prakash's earlier assertion that Shoba Yatra would not be allowed.

Lakshminarayana Nagavara of Dalit Sangharsh Samiti demanded that the Chief Minister react to Mr. Sadananda Gowda's statement immediately. The Government was bound by both High Court and Supreme Court directives to hold only those rituals that were in vogue on the hill before 1975, said Mr. Nagavara.

Vimala of All-India Democratic Women's Association recalled BJP leader H.N. Ananth Kumar's earlier statement that Bababudangiri was the "Ayodhya of the South." "This spark might grow into an uncontrollable fire," she warned.

Girish Karnad said there had been a "systematic effort" by the Sangh Parivar to create trouble in Sufi shrines across Karnataka, including Bababudangiri.

The forum is planning a jatha from Srirangapatna to Bababudangiri in the coming month in protest against the "communalisation of politics."