Starving monkeys find saviour in Ramanagara BJP president

He has befriended them and they too accept food from him without hesitation and without hurting him.

A BJP functionary has taken up the task of feeding starving monkeys at a few prominent temples in Ramanagara district of Karnataka ever since the lockdown was clamped across the country to check the spread of coronavirus.

Monkeys eat fruit and vegetables. (ANI)

With loads of edibles such as buns, bananas, groundnuts and other stuff and packaged drinking water, M Rudresh, party district president, marches out with a team of his party volunteers to feed these monkeys.

Videos of his feeding the simians have gone viral.

He has befriended them and they too accept food from him without hesitation and without hurting him.

According to Rudresh, he hit upon the idea when he went to one of the temples four days after the lockdown was clamped on March 24 and noticed that the monkeys were sitting right in the middle of the road.

“ I stopped my car and came out.Soon, the monkeys stormed inside the car and took away whatever edible they could find.

They even took away the packaged water bottles,” Rudresh told PTI.

The BJP leader realised that due to the lockdown, devotees have stopped visiting the temples and as a result monkeys surviving on the food offered by them were starving.

Moved by the plight of the primates, Rudresh decided to visit the religious places where the monkeys are in plenty and depend solely on the food offered by the devotees.

“Every alternative day I visit Savandurga, Kengal Anjaneya Swami Temple, Revan Siddheshwara Hill, Muthathi, Sangam and Shivagange and give them whatever I could,” Rudresh said.

While the BJP leader has earmarked Rs 25,000 for this purpose, the other party cadres too joined his campaign and contribute whatever they can.

“These days I take huge quantity of buns, bananas provided by our party workers, four cases of half-litre water bottles.

I remove the caps of the water bottle and they pick up from me,” Rudresh said