Siddaramaiah bats for kambala in Karnataka

Bengaluru: With the clamour growing for organising ‘kambala’, a traditional annual buffalo race, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah on Monday said his government was in favour of holding it and asked the Centre to take a favourable stand as it did for jallikattu in Tamil Nadu.

“We are in favour of kambala, we are for kambala. We pressurise the Union government to take a stand in favour of this (kambala), similar to the way in which it favoured jallikattu in Tamil Nadu,” he told reporters here.

To a question on large-scale protests planned by kambala committees, he said “...they are protesting for kambala, we are also in favour of kambala.”

Spurred by the jallikattu stir in Tamil Nadu, kambala committees had met in Mangaluru on Sunday to strategise their agitation, where it was decided to hold a massive protest on January 28 in Moodbidri in Dakshina Kannada district.

Karnataka High Court’s division bench, headed by Chief Justice S.K. Mukherjee, in an interim order in November 2016 had stayed holding of kambala on a petition by PETA challenging it in view of orders passed by the SC on jallikattu. Kambala committees have filed an interim application, seeking vacation of the stay.