SHIMOGA: The simmering differences between the Shimoga MP and Samajawadi Party State unit president S. Bangarappa and his son and Congress MLA from Soraba Kumar Bangarappa have taken a new dramatic turn.

It came into focus at the inauguration of a government school building at Jade in Soraba taluk which was done twice — first by the father and later by the son — much to the chagrin of their respective supporters.

While the MP "unofficially" declared open the school on Saturday, it was opened on Monday for the second time by the MLA under police protection.

According to the invitation cards circulated by the Department of Public Instruction, the school should have been declared open by Mr. Bangarappa on Monday at a function to be presided over by Mr. Kumar Bangarappa.

The function was arranged in adherence to the protocol, which lays down that the local MLA should preside over any public function.

The MP, who evidently did not like to share the platform of a public function with his son, got the invitations printed separately by the Jade Gram Panchayat and declared open the school on Saturday, in a hurried manner.

He came to the school with the workers of the Samajawadi Party and his supporters and declared the school open.

Mr. Kumar Bangarappa, who was reportedly hurt by the hurried manner in which his father inaugurated the school in his absence, chose to inaugurate it again despite the opposition by supporters of his father.

Several of the supporters of the MP were arrested by the police when they tried to disrupt the function.

Interestingly, the school does not have its own building. It is temporarily housed in two rooms of a hostel.

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