Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that despite being in the golden jubilee year of renaming of the State, it was regrettable that there was still need for creating “an atmosphere of Kannada” in the State.
He was addressing a large crowd at Cotton Sale Society on Friday in Gadag, the place which witnessed historic celebrations involving the then Chief Minister D. Devaraj Urs and the erstwhile Maharaja of Mysore Jayachamaraja Wadiyar during the renaming of state as Karnataka way back in 1973.
Remembering the contribution of the champions of Kannada like Alur Venkata Rao and other prominent litterateurs in the unification movement and subsequent renaming of the state as Karnataka, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that seven crore people in the State shuould take the pledge of reading and writing in Kannada. “It has become necessary and inevitable,” he said.
The Chief Minister recalled the event of 1973 in which Devaraj Urs participated and agriculture Minister K.H. Patil coordinated. “Today his son and Minister H.K. Patil has coordinated the event and I come from the same district Mysore as Mr. Devaraj Urs. This is a coincidental and also historical,” he said.
