Ahead of polls, Karnataka government to play statue politics

BENGALURU:  With few months left for the next Assembly polls, the BJP government is trying to woo the two biggest communities in the state -- Lingayat and Vokkaliga -- by installing statues of social reformer and philosopher Basavanna and Nadaprabhu Kempegowda at Vidhana Soudha. They are expected to be unveiled on November 1, the Kannada Rajyotsava Day.

The Vidhana Soudha premises now have the statues of Dr BR Ambedkar, Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Mahatma Gandhi and more. In fact, in 2021, when BS Yediyurappa was chief minister, the cabinet approved the installation of the Basavanna statue at Vidhana Soudha, but it did not materialise. Recently, during the Kempegowda Jayanti, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that a Kempegowda statue will be installed.

Now, the government has issued an order for both statutes. A senior official, requesting anonymity, said the order mentions that the statues will be unveiled on November 1. “The chief architect of PWD is getting the statues designed, and once done, an estimation will be arrived at. Most of the statues at Vidhana Soudha are 14-foot tall and these two are also expected to be of the same size and will be made out of brass. We have less time to design, get the approval and install them by November 1. We have already started the process,’’ he added.

The statues coming up just months ahead of polls seem to be aimed at grabbing votes. “Basavanna and Kempegowda are beyond caste and religion. But Lingayats and Vokkaligas have an emotional connect with the two greats. There are statues of these two personalities at many places, but having them at Vidhana Soudha makes a difference,” a BJP source said.

Earlier, too, the government had tried to play statue politics to woo the two communities by proposing to install a 111-foot-tall bronze statue of Lingayat seer Seer Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Mutt and another of Vokkaliga seer Balagangadharanatha Swamiji at Ramanagara.  The then CM Yediyurappa had allotted Rs 25 crore each for the statues and the work is going on.

The Kannada and Culture Department is planning to erect the tallest Goddess Bhuvaneshwari statue at 30 feet which will be installed at Kalagrama on the Jnana Bharathi campus. This is said to be an attempt to woo voters on the language sentiment.