The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Traffic affected as activists stage protest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Traffic affected as activists stage protest

Staff Reporter

They were demanding more employment opportunities for Kannadigas

Several roads see slow moving traffic for over an hour
Prime Minister urged to formulate guidelines

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

COMMUTERS IN HARDSHIP: Traffic at GPO Circle was disrupted during the Akhila Karnataka Gadi Horata Samiti rally in Bangalore on Wednesday.

BANGALORE: Traffic was affected for over an hour on roads around the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday as about 500 Kannada activists staged a protest demanding more employment opportunities for Kannadigas and classical language status for Kannada.

Ambedkar Veedhi, Chowdiah Road in front of Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Infantry Road, Cunningham Road, Cubbon Road, among other roads, witnessed slow moving traffic as the activists blocked the General Post Office Circle at peak hour around 11 a.m. for about 10 minutes.

Several Kannada organisations came under the banner of Akhila Karnataka Gadi Horata Samiti to demand 100 per cent employment for Kannadigas, especially in South Western Railways, where recruitment for Group D posts is on, name plates in Kannada and investigation of alleged atrocities against Kannadigas in Goa.

Samiti president Vatal Nagaraj, Rajkumar Abhimanigala Sangha president Sa.Ra. Govind, president of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, Shivaramegowda, K. Prabhakar Reddy of Kannada Vedike and N. Murthy of Dalit Sangharsh Samiti participated in the protest.

Appeal

Bangalore Special Correspondent writes:

Senior vice-president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee H. Hanumanthappa on Wednesday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party president Sonia Gandhi and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad intervene immediately and withdraw the recruitment to Group D posts in South Western Railway.

Speaking to presspersons here, Mr. Hanumanthappa, who headed the Railway Service Commission in the State when C.K. Jaffer Sharief was the Railway Minister, said that the process of recruitment should be postponed till the guidelines for appointing local people were laid down, to prevent injustice to the people of the State.

Of the 42,000 posts in the State, 8,500 posts were vacant. Outsiders should not be appointed to these vacant posts, he added.

RRBs

Mr. Hanumanthappa said that RRBs have been established in most of the States and there were three RRBs at Ranchi, Patna and Musbalpur in Bihar to recruit youths from that State.

He said he could not understand why Biharis should be sent to Karnataka to harm the interests of Kannadigas and other local people. Bihar has developed a vested interest, as the Railway Ministry continued to be held by leaders from that State, he added.

The Congress leader said the practice of appointing officials as chairpersons of the RRB was partly responsible for the lack of representation to the people from the State in various posts in the Railways and demanded that it (chairperson’s post) be filled with a non-official chairman.

Mr. Hanumanthappa, who was accompanied by Mallajamma, MLC, and M. Ramachandrappa, general secretary of the party, said that he would discuss the issue with the Congress MPs so that they could take it up with the Central leaders of the party.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka