Karnataka CM Gundu Rao travels with his 14 ministers to Belgaum to hold cabinet meeting

Karnataka Chief Minister Ramarao Gundu Rao added one more bead to his dubious string of achievements last fortnight when he travelled with his 14 cabinet ministers to distant Belgaum, 515 km from Bangalore, to hold a cabinet meeting outside the capital for the first time in the state's 25-year-long history.While Rao crowed that he was bringing the "Government to the people", opposition leaders dubbed his entourage as a "'touring circus". Commented Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader A. K. Subbiah caustically: "It's mere buffoonery. A tamasha the state cannot afford."Undaunted by the Opposition's criticism Rao and his band of ministers went on to make a record 42 decisions in three hours sanctioning schemes worth more than Rs 60 crore. The subjects dealt with ranged from water supply, power and irrigation projects to the construction of two wards in a hospital in Karwar district.While Rao claimed that each one of the decisions was "major", Azeez Sait, a former minister and Congress(S) leader said: "All these decisions could have easily been made sitting in Bangalore itself. It's only a gimmick by Rao to gain cheap popularity."Expenditure: Sait estimated that the cost of holding such a meeting would cross Rs 3 lakh. Said he: "Can we waste so much public money just to decide routine matters?" But the Government hotly denied the accusation and a senior bureaucrat said the only expenses were on travel. While Rao flew by helicopter, the other ministers came either by a scheduled Indian Airlines flight or by car. They stayed in inspection bungalows and a private guest-house to save money."The expenditure would be less than Rs 30,000," the official claimed.Two months ago the Government had decided to hold cabinet meetings at the headquarters of the four revenue divisions that Karnataka has been divided into. Rao's justifications for such meetings were:To enable cabinet ministers to visit the area so that problems pertaining to more than one ministry are solved and quick decisions taken.To review the progress of development administration of the area.To meet the people of the area face to-face and find out their problems and their aspirations.Rao and cabinet colleagues: Popular stuntBelgaum, which is the revenue division headquarters for the districts of Bijapur, Dharwar and Uttara Kannada, was chosen as the first venue. Two weeks before the meeting was to be held the ministers in charge of the 20-point economic programme were asked to tour their respective districts. Then four secretaries to the Government spent three days in each district to study all the pending problems and recommend to the cabinet the issues to be taken up.The evening before the meeting, the ministers met informally to review the decisions they were likely to take. After the cabinet meeting was over, a triumphanl Rao announced that cabinet discussions would be held in Gulbarga, Mysore and Shimoga in the course of the next three months. He then flew back to Bangalore the same evening and caught the Delhi flight to see Mrs Gandhi's off on her tour abroad.Effective Gimmick: Rao had gone about organising the cabinet meeting with such gusto that Subbiah suspects he was using it as a vote-catching gimmick for the possible mid-term poll.In Belgaum, Rao scotched all rumours of such a poll but added confidently that even if it was held his party would win hands down. Although the Opposition dismissed the cabinet meeting as a "stunt", they went out of their way to try to counter its effect.Dethroned Congress(S) president Devraj Urs, who is trying to make a comeback in his home state, held political meetings in neighbouring Dharwar district. Janata Party leader S.R. Bommai, who had tried to embarrass Rao by presenting him with a list of some of the difficult problems of the area before the cabinet meeting, also camped in Dharwar.Publicity stunt it may have been, but as such, it seems to have worked. Rao can now claim to be the first chief minister of the state to hold a cabinet meeting outside Bangalore. And next month he will get another chance to be one up on the Opposition when he presides over the state's silver jubilee celebrations.Keen to make political capital out of the event, Rao has made elaborate preparations for the celebrations and has even invited Mrs Gandhi to inaugurate it. And for the time being it looks as if Rao is well ahead of his foes.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 31, 2013 09:02 IST--- ENDS ---

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Karnataka CM Gundu Rao travels with his 14 ministers to Belgaum to hold cabinet meeting

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