Vajpayee visited Udupi six times
Udupi, August 16: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who died after prolonged illness at AIIMS at New Delhi on Thursday, had visited Udupi, the temple town, six times in his lifetime.
When Vajpayee was the national president of Bharatiya Jan Sangh (earlier name of BJP) in 1968, the Jan Sangh had come to power at New Delhi and Udupi city municipal councils with clear majority for the first time. When Udupi city municipal council came into existence, the Jan Sangh had come to power and when Dr VS Acharya was elected as the president, Vajpayee had called him over phone and congratulated him, M Somashekar Bhat who was elected as then Udupi city municipal council member, recalled.
When the Udupi city municipal council had banned carrying excreta on head for the first time in the country, Vajpayee had congratulated Dr Acharya in 1968. In the same year, Vajpayee had participated in a special programme of the city municipal council held in front of the Pejawar Mutt on Ratha Beedi, recalled another senior leader Gujjadi Prabhakar Nayak who became the city municipal council president later.
Somashekar Bhat recalled his stay with Vajpayee, LK Advani and other leaders in Bengaluru jail when Indira Gandhi jailed the opposition leaders during Emergency in 1975.
In the Lok Sabha elections held after withdrawing the Emergency in 1977, Vajpayee had visited Udupi to campaign in favour of former Supreme Court Judge Justice KS Hegde and he had also participated in that meeting, recollected Gujjadi.
Somashekar Bhat recalled that Vajpayee had visited Udupi in 1984 to campaign in favour of himself who contested for Assembly from BJP and Karamballi Sanjeeva Shetty who contested for Lok Sabha elections and addressed the people in front of Victoria Jubilee Hall before the city municipal council. Though both of them were defeated in that election, they were able to retain the deposits and it was because of the speech and visit of Vajpayee, Bhat said.
In 1993, Vajpayee again visited Udupi. While returning from Shivamogga, he had visited Udupi and he was welcomed in front of the city municipal council and felicitated him. In 1998, Vajpayee visited Udupi for the fifth time. He had come to the city to campaign in favour of IM Jayaram Shetty who had contested for Lok Sabha election. Thousands of people thronged the Bhujanga Park where the rally was held to listen to his speech. In the same year, he had also visited Mangaluru to campaign in favour of Dhananjay Kumar.
As the last time, Vajpayee had come to Udupi in 2001 to inaugurate the newly constructed Rajangana by Pejawar seer during the fourth Paryaya of Pejawar seer at Krishna Mutt. On January 18, 2001, Vajpayee, along with Vishvesha Tirtha Swamiji, had darshan of Lord Sri Krishna and inaugurated the Rajangana in the evening. He was felicitated by the Pejawar Mutt then.
Vajpayee had many friends for in Udupi including Dr VS Acharya, Somashekar Bhat, Karamballi Sanjeeva Shetty and others. Dr VS Acharya was recalling his friendship with Vajpayee and LK Advani.
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Karnataka HM G Parameshwara blames EVM for Cong debacle in Maharashtra, backs ballot papers
BENGALURU: Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara on Monday alleged Electronic Voting Machine manipulations led to the defeat of Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in just concluded assembly polls in Maharashtra.
While speaking to reporters here on Monday, he said the BJP does selective manipulations to convince people that there were no wrongdoings. He also wanted to go back to the paper ballots system.
The ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra won a landslide victory in the assembly elections, shattering the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream to wrest power. The BJP won the highest ever 132 seats for the party, while the Shiv Sena led by Shinde bagged 57 seats and NCP won 41 seats to take the Mahayuti total to 230 seats. Congress as part of MVA won just 16 seats.
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"We analysed the Maharashtra poll outcome deeply. We felt that in many places EVMs were manipulated," Parameshwara said. He also said an obvious question would be why not it happened in Jharkhand and elsewhere. The manipulations are done selectively so that no one can question it, he blamed.
According to him, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is a leading partner. Had the Congress been the leading partner, things would have changed. He backed the ballot papers saying that the same was discussed in Maharashtra Congress as well.
