Bagalkot: Kurubas step up stir for Scheduled Tribe status

BAGALKOT: Kurubas intensified their campaign for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status on Sunday, with a prominent seer urging elected representatives from the community that they should be prepared to resign if the government failed to fulfil the demand.
“If required, our MLAs, MLCs and ministers should quit their posts in the interest of the community,” Shri Eshwarananda Puri Swamiji of the Kanaka Guru Peetha Kaginele, Hosadurga Matha, said at a community gathering in Bagalkot.
The appeal comes days after he and members of the Kuruba ST campaign committee met chief minister BS Yediyurappa.
The seer reiterated the demand that Kuruba MLCs AH Vishwanath, MTB Nagaraj and R Shankar should be appointed as ministers as they helped BJP form the government last year. The three were among 17 Congress and JD(S) rebels who quit the coalition, handing BJP an advantage. “Yediyurappa should compensate them by fulfilling his promise of inducting them into his cabinet,” he said.
On the absence of Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba, at the gathering, the seer said that the opposition leader and former chief minister had expressed support for the cause.
But rural development and panchayat raj minister KS Eshwarappa, also a Kuruba, was critical of Siddaramaiah. “I asked Siddaramaiah several times to join us in the agitation, but he never came. He should publicly state his reasons for not attending the meet,” he added.
The community plans to organise a mega padayatra to Bengaluru, to pressure the central and state governments to provide the ST status. “The padayatra will begin from Kaginele on January 15 and culminate in Bengaluru on February 7,” the seer said.
Eshwarappa also urged community members to prepare for the padayatra, but clarified that the protest was not against the central or state government. “It is to seek our right,” he said