MP Kateel’s Face on Illegal Hoardings Blackened by Activists for Supporting Yettinahole Project
Mangaluru: Recalling the press meet held by MP Nalin Kumar Kateel in Mangaluru in October 2015, about the success of the four-day Padayatra from Mangaluru to Yettinahole where he had said, “More than 25,000 people joined us from Mangaluru and other districts to support the padayatra. Religious heads from various temples along with more than 25000 people who were unable to join our protest blessed us for the success of the padayatra. We are not against the government for providing water to the people of Kolar or Chikkaballapur, but we are protesting against the unscientific method in implementing the Yettinahole project. We are also against the government which is spending Rs 13,000 crores for the project. The ball is in Chief minister Siddaramaiah’s court and he can stop the project. To avoid political colour to the protest, I have decided to take part in every protest against the Yettinahole project, till the government stops the project. I urge the various organizations and the people from the district to take part in future protests against Yettinahole keeping aside party differences.”
And the same Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel who in the past had strongly opposed the Yettinahole project has all of a sudden has made a U-Turn where he has changed his opinion and welcomed the Rs 1500 crore fund allocation during the recent budget by chief minister BS Yediyurappa for the project in the budget. In the past apart from the padayathra, he has also staged various protests and organized many public meetings against the project. The then Siddaramaiah-led government had detained Kateel and other protesters when the Padayatra reached Hassan district. The sudden U-turn by Kateel has irked people of Dakshina Kannada, as Netravathi is considered to be the lifeline of the district. Even District BJP workers too have been shocked after MP Kateel spoke in favor of the project recently.
MP Kateel who had earlier criticized the Congress government for spending almost Rs 13,000 crores on the Yettinahole project, has now openly welcomed and supported CM Yediyurappa’s Rs 1500 crore sanction towards the Yettinahole project. How about that? Nothing but total bah humbug! To support his stand towards CM and Yettinahole project, a bunch of illegal hoardings were erected in the city yesterday- and the environmental activists and National Environment Care Federation(NECF) members under the leadership of Shashidhar Shetty, Dinesh Holla and team went around the City, and blackened the face of MP Nalin on the hoardings, as mark of anger and disappointment on the U-Turn made by Kateel.
The head of NECH Sashidhar Shetty speaking to Team Mangalorean said, “We were totally irked by the sudden U-turn made by MP Kateel, who in the past had shown full support against the Yettinahole project. The recent support by him shown towards CM’s allocation of funds to the Yettinahole and his support to to the ongoing Yettinahole project made us upset and angry. Therefore we decided to blacken MP’s face seen on few of the illegal hoardings erected in the city. First of displaying any kind of hoardings is against the law, and MP has turned a blind eye towards it. Also we torn down couple of hoardings, because the advt agency had trimmed the top portion of the saplings, since the sap;lings were blocking the hoardings. While we were blackening the hoardings, a few supporters of MP objected us, and when the police arrived, they said that we not going against the law, since displaying of hoardings is illegal and against the law, and we activists have freedom and rights to go against such illegal things”.
The blackening of hoardings were done by the activists last evening, and this morning when Team Mangalorean went around the City, all these hoardings erected near Kadri park, om MG Road, lalbagh and other places have been removed. Wow!
