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Name varsity after Akka Mahadevi: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

SHIKARIPUR (SHIMOGA DT.) Oct. 15. The BJP today launched a campaign to name the women's university, proposed to be set up in Bijapur, after Akka Mahadevi, saint and poetess.

The party's State unit President, H.N. Ananth Kumar, who launched the campaign by offering puja to an idol of Akka Mahadevi, said the demand for naming the university after the poet was made in the interest of protecting culture. It was not motivated by political considerations, he added.

He said that there could be no better name to the new university than that of Akka Mahadevi, whose ideal of social and gender equality, propagated in the 12th Century, had become the creed of higher education, particularly in the context of globalisation.

Mr. Kumar said that the BJP would continue its campaign till the Government accepted the demand to name the university after Akka Mahadevi.

The Chairman of the BJP's State campaign committee and MLC, B.S. Yediyurappa, condemned the reported move of the Government to name the university after the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, and warned that it would be responsible for any social tension and unrest caused by the idea.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, D.H. Shankarmurthy, asked why the university should be named Ms. Gandhi, who, he said, was not born in India.

Mr. Yediyurappa administered an oath to members of the audience to support the campaign.

Addressing presspersons, Mr. Kumar said that BJP workers would stage a dharna in front of the statues of Basaweshwara and Akka Mahadevi all over the State to draw the Government's attention to its demand.

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