Bengaluru: Amid protests and boycott from Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishat, the first ever Tipu Jayanthi will be celebrated by the Congress government on Tuesday. A function will be organised at Banquet Hall in Vidhana Soudha.
The Congress government, in honour of Tipu Sultan fighting the British till his end, had decided to celebrate the Tipu birth anniversary as a state festival. As there was confusion over the birth date of Tipu Sultan, the state government went by the decision of Tipu Wakf Estate of Mysuru run by Congress MLA, Tanveer Sait.
The Mysuru-based organisation went into the records and decided to change the records. "History books have mentioned November 20 as Tipu’s birthday. But actually, it was November 10, so we decided to request Wikipedia and other agencies to change Tipu’s date of birth," Minority Welfare Department officials said.
Tuesday’s function will be addressed by noted literateur Girish Karnad, Talakadu Chikkarange Gowda, Prof Shaikh Ali, Baraguru Ramachandrappa, Prof N.V. Nagarajaiah and Vatal Nagaraj. The function will be attended chief minister, Siddaramaiah and his cabinet colleagues. Meanwhile, the BJP decided to boycott the function.
State BJP president Pralhad Joshi directed office bearers and all elected representatives of the party to boycott the celebration of Tipu Sultan's birth anniversary. Addressing press persons in Hubballi on Monday, he said that the party had decided to stage protests across the State opposing the government move. Terming the king as fanatic and anti-Kannada, he said that that the party opposed his birth anniversary celebration in principle.
Condemning the directives to all government employees to take part in the celebration, he said that the move was unjustifiable when there was a general holiday given for them on the occasion of Hindu festival Diwali.
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