Siddaramaiah intolerant of KCR's Chandiyagam

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has tweaked the intolerance debate by saying he does not believe in yagas or mantras, the Hindu rituals. Talking in connection with `Kavi Kuvempu' anniversary celebrations in the Vidhan Souda on Tuesday night, Siddaramaiah took the reference of the big-scale Chandiyagam performed by his Telangana counterpart, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, and wondered loudly whether performing yagas would result in a State's development. "KCR has performed Chandiyagam. Would his State develop on account of it? Because of Fire worship, would any State stand to develop? Is there any scientific basis for such worship?' The Karnataka Chief Minister won't leave it at that. He went on, `If you perform yagas, would there be rains. If this were true, there would not have been a shadow of drought on this country. The entire country would have been agriculturally rich and prosperous.' `Even so, it is unfortunate that even the educated blindly believe in certain practices, which is unfortunate and cause of much pain,' the Chief Minister added. The question is if KCR performs a yaga on his own ground with his own money, why should it cause so much pain to a Congress Chief Minister of another State. KCR firmly believes in his faith. He had vowed to perform the Chandiyagam on a historical scale as a votive offering to the formation of Telangana. When the State was formed, among those surprised were Congress leaders themselves. In fact, Congress leadership had to change the party incharge for Andhra Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad and bring in leaders who had no locus standi such as Digvijay Singh into the picture to convince themselves that separation of combined AP was feasible. What was the result? The Congress had the consternation to see the party being rejected both in Andhra Pradesh and newly formed Telangana in the event, when the people had for decades put their unflinching faith in the Grand Old Party. Siddaramaiah would have to review the fate of the Congress in AP and Telangana, which are progressing by their governments promoting such events as Godavari pushkarams. At least Telangana is in a position to challenge the IT suremacy of Bangalore with Hyderabad forging ahead in the IT field. If this is proof enough, Congress leader Siddaramaiah should stop showing intolerance and start thinking of putting faith in progress. It is easy to say, `Would you get tamarind fruit just by chanting a mantra under the tree?' If you can achieve greater fruits of development by faith sans politicking of the party variety, won't you prefer it?