Congress suspends Mekedatu padayatra after Karnataka order, calls it a sacrifice
The Karnataka Congress decision comes after the state government prohibited participation in the Mekedatu padyatra, and the high court asked why the march had been allowed by the state government.
BENGALURU: The Karnataka Congress on Thursday decided to temporarily call off the 100km padayatra for Mekedatu, terming it a ‘sacrifice’ in the interest of the state and its people.
“Today, we are sacrificing this protest,” DK Shivakumar, the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) said on Thursday in Ramanagara, about 50 km from Bengaluru. Shivakumar said that this was just a temporary break and not a permanent one, emphasising that the protest will resume from the same place. He did not specify when.
The decision comes a day after the Basavaraj Bommai-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government finally decided to prohibit participation in the padayatra against the backdrop of a steep rise in Covid-19 infections across the state. The Karnataka high court too had come down heavily on the government for its inaction and the Congress for its defiance of restrictions imposed by the state government in view of the pandemic.
Also Read: Rajya Sabha LoP Mallikarjun Kharge tests Covid +ve; was part of Mekedatu march
Senior Congress leaders held a meeting in Ramanagara district on Thursday after the government’s late evening order in which several leaders expressed concerns over continuing the march.
Hundreds and thousands of Congress workers and others have been taking part in the 10-day padayatra, which started on January 9, to put pressure on the BJP government to initiate works on the contentious balancing reservoir across Cauvery river at Mekedatu in Ramanagara district, about 100 km from Bengaluru.
The government also has had to face criticism for its reluctance to act against the yatra for the project, reportedly because it did not want to give the Congress a handle, though it hadn’t hesitated to impose severe restrictions on other residents of the state.
By Thursday morning, according to data compiled by the union health ministry, Karnataka has 93,128 active Covid cases.
At least three complaints have been filed against senior Congress leaders and others since the march began.
“The Congress is not responsible for the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the third wave. It is the BJP,” Siddaramaiah, the leader of the opposition said on Thursday.
He added that neither the chief minister nor any of the others in the BJP were concerned about the health of people when they held events or large gatherings.