London: It was seen as a well earned break when former Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah took off to Europe recently with his friends. But no sooner has he come home then a controversy has arisen with the Lambeth Basaveshwara Foundation objecting to his late night visit to the statue of Basaveshwara in the UK, and taking photographs besides it and posting them on social media. In a hard hitting statement, chairman of the foundation, Dr Neeraj Patil has demanded to know why Mr Siddaramaiah wanted to pay tribute to Basaveshwara at 1 am in the morning, keeping the office-bearers in the dark about his visit.
“We would have invited Kannadigas to welcome Mr Siddaramaiah. But he instead chose to visit the statue at midnight. It was a shock and surprise," he said.
Recalling that sculpting of the statue was commissioned with the support of the government of Karnataka in 2010, he regretted that when Mr Siddaramaiah took over as Chief Minister he ordered withdrawal of all support to the project. “This placed it under great risk and we had to contribute personally to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore to complete the project. Subsequently when an invitation was extended to him for the joint unveiling the statue by the Prime Minister on November 15, 2015, Mr Siddaramaiah not only declined , but also ridiculed us for inviting the PM, who he said was not worthy of unveiling a statue of Basaveshwara.
We attempted to explain to him that outside India our political affiliations did not matter and requested him to join the Prime Minister as Chief Minister to jointly unveil the statue. Unfortunately, he failed to understand,” he regretted. Calling Mr Siddaramaiah “This Honourbale Gentleman,” he went on to allege that he had made a futile attempt to divide followers of Basaveshwara only to come to power and continue as Chief Minister of Karnataka for a second term.
