Modi has time for glitz not seer’s funeral: DyCM
Bengaluru: A day after Lingayat seer Shivakumara Swami of the Siddaganga Mutt was laid to rest with state honours, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwar slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for absenting himself from the funeral.
Parameshwar, who toll to Twitter to express his anger against Modi’s absence, said that the Prime Minister had disregarded the seer and his contributions.
Parameshwara also taunted Modi for receiving the Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He said that Modi “truly deserved” the Award, as he had chosen to ignore Karnataka’s repeated requests for conferring Bharat Ratna on the Siddaganga Seer.
“PM Modi attends celebrity weddings, meets movie stars but skips the funeral of our Na Deda Duva Devaru, who dedicated his life to help the poor & the marginalised, Repeated requests to confer Bharat Ratna on him have gone in vain. Truly well-deserved recipient of Kotler Award” reads his tweet.
Later speaking to reporters in Bengaluru on Wednesday, Parameshwara said that he was not politicising the seer’s death. “It is only my feeling, Swamiji is respected throughout the world. The Prime Minister himself has visited him and so have many presidents, prime ministers and dignitaries, recognising his service to humanity. He picked up the cause of education at a time India needed education for its masses. That is why he has become great. Lakhs of students have studied there. Today they have their own life. We are not politicising the seer’s death. in fact, we did everything to respect his ideology, his thinking and his service. Beyond that there is nothing,” he added.
Justifying his tweet on Modi, Parameshwara said that if the former had attended the funeral, the stature of his office would have increased. “The Prime Minister should have come he should have attended the seer’s funeral. I dont want to say that he was going here and there. I am not a small minded person. But if he had attended the funeral, the level of Prime Ministership would have gone up.”
When asked why his own party Chiefs, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi gave the funeral a miss, Parameshwara said, “Rahul Gandhi is not occupying any position in the government. But when he occupies such a position, I will definitely say the same to him also. Whoever is the President of Prime Minister, they occupy respected positions. You are respected because you are Prime Minster. You are not Narendra Modi, you are Prime Minister even to me, even though I am a Congressman.”