Bengaluru: While Chief Minister Siddaramaiah does not often go to temples or to astrologers for a peep into his future, he has never called himself an atheist either.
So he had no reason to protest when his family members consulted an astrologer on what lay ahead for him. But he may have wished he had protested as the astrologer was all gloom and despondency.
The next eight months would be very tough, he told the CM warning that he could face a great deal of embarassment as well.
While a sceptical CM may have dismissed these dire predictions, one of his ministers wondered aloud if his hard days were here when the BJP met the Governor demanding dismissal of minister, Santosh Lad. After all, the issue did spell the end of the BJP government!
Governor Bhardwaj shows his storytelling side
Governor H.R. Bharadwaj likes going down memory lane, one of his pet subjects being his long association with the late Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, which he likes to dwell on while talking about socio-political issues.
At a recent Meet the Press programme of the Bangalore Reporters’ Guild and the Press Club of Bangalore, he chose to dwell on another subject: his association with Karnataka and his days in Raj Bhavan. While it was an entertaining story, by the time he had concluded his opening remarks, the 90-minutes of the programme had almost run out.
And reporters had to be content with asking him exactly four questions, tucking away the scores they had come prepared with for another time.
Gowda’s picture makes him Sreesanth’s supporter
A recent picture of former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda holding a cricket bat that appeared on a social networking site with the caption: Gowda backs Sreesanth and criticises BCCI, had readers amazed.
Most wondered where and when the JDS stalwart had made such a statement and why would he back the tainted cricketer? But reading further, they soon had their answer.
Gowda like Sreesanth, has a towel on his shoulder prominently displayed to the camera , concluded the tongue-in-cheek caption. The joke, it appeared, was on everyone taken in by thepicture.
Modi congress in Mandya
Heard of Modi Congress? It appears there is one in Mandya district. DCC leader, Satyananda, said at a meeting recently, “We in Mandya district have two Congress units. One is Sonia Congress, the original and the other is Modi Congress.”
He was apparently referring to the Ambareesh faction as the Modi Congress. The reason? Ambareesh had during the recent Mandya parliamentary by-poll campaign compared Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah to Narendra Modi.
Any comparison to the controversial Gujarat Chief Minister has to be frowned upon in the Congress and realising this Mr Satyananda was clearly doing his bit to put the star turned politician in a bit of spot. Needless to say, the latter cannot have been amused.
CM’s reply too fast for bullet train
It was a question too quick even for a bullet train. Back from his China trip, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, shared his experience of travelling on a high-speed train in Shanghai and wondered aloud why Bengaluru should not have such a train.
He was referring to the bullet train planned between Bengaluru and Mysore. But when a reporter wanted to know if the bullet train would have stops, the question was shot down by the Chief Minister who asserted,“Modalu train barali bidri, aamele stops kodbeko bedvo nodana!” (Let the train come first and later we’ll see how many stops it will have).
— Contributed by Bhaskar Hegde, Prathima Nandakumar, Vinay Madhav and B. Aravinda Shetty