Cheers as Siddaramaiah shares dais with Modi

The state units of both the Congress and BJP delivered on their promise and kept the atmosphere pleasant when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Siddaramaiah shared the stage at a public event here on Wednesday.

The state units of both the Congress and BJP delivered on their promise and kept the atmosphere pleasant when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Siddaramaiah shared the stage at a public event here on Wednesday.

The leaders came together for the inauguration of the Future Consumer Enterprise Ltd’s 110-acre India Food Park in Tumkur.

There were fears that Modi’s supporters would boo the chief minister, as they had done at similar public functions in Jharkhand and Haryana.

But the supporters of the two leaders, who represent sharply divergent political ideologies, restricted themselves only to cheering their icons.

Unlike in Haryana and Jharkhand, however, the Karnataka Congress ensured that the venue had a substantial presence of Siddaramaiah’s supporters.

Siddaramaiah, who spoke first, delivered his speech in Kannada forcing Modi to depend on Union minister Ananth Kumar for translations. Speaking second, Modi said, “I understood what the CM said because in a democracy the Centre should understand the state’s needs. Similarly, the Centre’s sentiments should be understood by the states. Only then can the country develop.”

He said that the India Food Park was not a central project.

“The state government has given subsidised land and power to the project,” he pointed out.

Calling for greater corporate investment in the farm sector, he said that companies such as Pepsi and Coca Cola should try and invest more in manufacturing fruit juices and natural products so that farmers could benefit from the demand.