Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi took the political battle on the issue of illegal mining and alleged involvement of Reddy brothers to chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s home district, Shimoga, with some caustic remarks on Friday.
The comments, made when the leader fielded questions during an interaction with college students of Shimoga, could certainly push up the political heat over the issue of illegal mining by a couple of degrees. The timing of his statement, too, seems crucial, coming a day ahead of a rally scheduled to be addressed by the ruling party’s patriarch L.K. Advani in Mysore, the home turf of Congress leader Siddaramaiah. The reported remarks came when a student, Basavaraj, asked about conservation of natural resources and the role of some politicians in illegal mining. “Who elected these leaders? People like you elected them. They become MLAs and then powerful ministers like the Reddy brothers. We need honest and educated young people to join politics and stop such illegal activities,” Mr Gandhi reportedly told the 1,000-odd students.
in Kuvempu Rangamandir.
He also remarked that there were no quick-fix solutions against corruption and could be tackled by upright and well-read youth.
Meanwhile, Aishwarya, a student of PES Institute of Technology and Management, Shimoga, broke the security guidelines by carrying her handbag into Kuvempu Rangamandir, and then made an issue about protection for Rahul Gandhi himself. How reliable is the security mechanism in our country, she asked the leader during the interaction on Friday. Mr Gandhi replied that he could do little about security arrangements and had often asked authorities concerned to scale down the cordon around him, but the last word was always that of the officers in charge of security.