BENGALURU: Taking a serious exception against the State Government over the state IAS officers pressed into service on protocol duty in the recently held political meet under the Congress party in Bengaluru city, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal Secular lodged a joint complaint to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Thursday and asked the Governor to seek an explanation from the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
In another complaint to the Governor, BJP and JDS MLAs complained against Assembly Speaker U.T. Khader over his action to suspend 10 BJP MLAs from the session on Wednesday.
The two former Chief Ministers termed the action of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah amounts to violation of destruction of all basic values and ethics of the Constitution. In a joint letter to the Governor signed by previous Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai of BJP and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal Secular met the Governor and urged him to issue directions to the Chief Minister to stop the deterioration of bureaucracy to the status of servants and protocol officers of politicians and political parties.
The two former Chief Ministers stated even the State protocol officers cannot serve political functions as these are not related to State and its powers and duties and said that a conclave of political parties cannot be taken as an excuse to use and abuse the bureaucracy of Karnataka and its machinery.
They further brought to the notice of the Governor that the political meet in Bengaluru attended by Congress leaders-Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah have no official positions in Government. Besides, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar have come to Bengaluru for a political function unrelated to the affairs of Karnataka.
For a purely private function, the two ex-CMs stated that the State Government posted IAS officers as protocol officers to a function which had no connection with the official duties of the Karnataka government.
