Floral tribute at the Jawaharlal Nehru statue on the Vidhana Soudha premises in Bengaluru on his birth anniversary, Saturday. Photo: CMO Karnataka
Bengaluru: The second list of appointments to boards and corporations will be released in a day or two, Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said on Saturday, adding that the remaining posts would then be given to party workers. The first list has already been announced.
He was speaking at a Children’s Day programme held on the occasion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s birth anniversary at the Bharat Jodo hall of the KPCC office. Earlier in the day, he offered floral tributes to Nehru’s statue on the Vidhana Soudha premises.
“You must enrol members for the Bharat Jodo Yuva Sanghas at panchayat and ward levels in the coming days. We have appointed 40,000 people to the Guarantee Committee, and the appointment of 20,000 more members is under way. The five guarantees of our government are important, and the sixth guarantee is the land guarantee. The whole country is watching our guarantee schemes,” he said.
“The party has prepared an app on the SIR. We must think about and work to add back the names of eligible voters dropped from the electoral rolls. We have run an awareness programme among people on this,” he said.
Speaking to reporters on the Vidhana Soudha premises earlier, Shivakumar said schemes Nehru designed with foresight in education, science, technology and power generation still contribute to the country’s development. He said the five-year plans gave a new direction to employment and industrial development, and that Nehru thought about the computer age as early as 1955. He also asked people to remember Nehru’s role in bringing in the law prohibiting dowry for the protection of women, and the grant for building the Tungabhadra dam.
At the KPCC programme, he said children are the country’s wealth and their education is the real investment. “Nehru told children that tomorrow is yours, and asked that his birthday be celebrated as Children’s Day,” he said, adding that Nehru made Ambedkar the law minister so that he could frame the Constitution.
Shivakumar said Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel brought together more than 550 princely states so that the country would not be fragmented. He said Nehru began HMT, ITI, ISRO and other public sector undertakings from Bengaluru, which the people of Karnataka cannot forget.
He said Nehru rose from the post of chairman of the Allahabad municipality to Prime Minister, and that leaders such as Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Rajagopalachari and B.D. Jatti also grew through local body elections. “Not everyone needs to begin politics as an MLA. All of us were zilla panchayat members, and Siddaramaiah was a taluk board member,” he said.
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