BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday remained non-committal on a statement by his Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar over inclusion of Kanakapura taluk of Ramnagar with Bengaluru Urban district but said to discuss the matter with Shivakumar.
Continuing, the CM said he had no idea about the statement made by Shivakumar and said to seek answers from the Dy CM. It may be recalled here that Shivakumar at a function in Kanakapura on Tuesday had stated that “You people should bear in mind that Kanakapura is now Bengaluru and not with Ramnagar district.”
Shivakumar represents Kanakapura Assembly seat undefeated since 2008 elections and prior to his wins in Kanakapura seat, he had won 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004 elections. Now, Sathanur and Kanakapura Assembly seats have been merged and the Kanakapura Assembly seat came into existence during the delimitation of the Assembly seat in 2008.
In the 2023 election, Shivakumar won by a margin of 1.23 lakh votes against his nearest rival R. Ashioka of Bharatiya Janata Party and former Revenue Minister.
At the function in Kanakapura, Shivakumar had stated “A day would come when villages of Kanakapura would become Bengaluru. It will happen. Every foot of land would have (greater) value.”
“I cannot put money into your pockets and also cannot build houses for you. But, the Almighty has given me strength to make your assets value increase by 10 folds,” he said at the function.
Criticising Shivakumar, Janata Dal Secular leader and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy reacted that Bengaluru city is about 52 km from Kanakapura while the headquarters Ramnagar is about 25 km and questioned “Which place is accessible to the people?”
The motive of the Minister to include Kanakapura to Bengaluru district leads to suspicion, said the JDS leader and doubted that real estate business could be the reason behind it.
