God Prevented me Participating in Tipu Jayanti as Tippu had Destroyed Pethri Church – Pramod Madhwaraj
Udupi: Former Udupi district minister in-charge and Congress leader Pramod Madhwaraj once sparked a controversy because of his remarks on state-sponsored Tipu Jayanti. During the Golden Jubilee celebrations of St Peter’s Church Pethri, on December 10 Pramod Madhawaraj had participated as the chief guest of the function.
In his message Pramod Madhwaraj had said that, whether it was right or wrong celebrating Tipu Jayanti by the state government. But because Tipu has destroyed the Pethri Church, God had helped him indirectly not to participate in the Tipu Jayanti programme while he was the MLA and minister. The video of the speech by Pramod Madhwaraj has gone viral in social media from the last two days.
In the Golden Jubilee report, the church management had mentioned that Tipu Sultan had destroyed the old church of Pethri. “By Gods grace during my MLA and minister tenure, I did not get the chance to participate in the Tipu Jayanti programme. Tipu’s soldiers had destroyed this church many years back and now God himself has prevented me from participating in the Tipu Jayanti programme”.
In 2015 the Congress government started to celebrate Tipu Jayanti when Pramod Madhwaraj was the MLA of Udupi Assembly Constituency. The district administration had organized the programme at the Bannanje Narayana Guru Hall in Udupi and Pramod had not attended the programme.
In 2016 while he was district minister in-charge of Udupi District and the programme was organized at the Brahmagiri Lions Bhavan, he did not participate in the programme. The Muslim community members had expressed their displeasure against Pramod Madhwaraj.
In 2017 the district administration organised Tipu Jayanti at Rajathadri but there too Pramod did not attend the programme. On the same day, Pramod had participated in another programme at Rajathadri.