Bangalore, August 30
In an apparent comedown on the Uma Bharti issue, the Karnataka Government told the High Court here today that it would abide by a Cabinet decision of 2002 withdrawing all cases against the BJP leader.
Counsel for the government specifically referred to the 1994 Idgah Maidan case in which Ms Bharti unfurled the National Flag in the Idgah
Maidan, defying the prohibitory orders. The High Court dismissed as unmaintainable a public interest petition filed by Raghunath Gowda, wanting all cases against Uma Bharti withdrawn.
The court has directed the 1st Judicial Magistrate’s court in Hubli to re-examine the Karnataka Government’s decision.
The Karnataka Government’s stand was conveyed to the court by Karnataka’s Advocate-General
Parthasarathy. The court asked him to file a petition in this regard in the Hubli court and also stressed that it was the duty of the state government to maintain law and order.
The state’s stand is apparently an attempt to defuse the massive and high-profile agitation planned by the BJP in this regard. BJP President Venkaiah Naidu had announced a weeklong ‘satyagraha’ starting from September 1 in which former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, along with former Union Ministers Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj, would participate and court arrest. It would culminate in a rally to be addressed by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Bangalore on September 8. The theme of the satyagraha was the “insult to the National Flag by withdrawing its earlier move to withdraw all cases against the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, when her only crime was to defend the citizen’s right to hoist the tricolour at a public place on August 15 and January 26.”
The counsel’s submission is also an embarrassment to former Karnataka Chief Minister
S.M. Krishna, whose Cabinet made the 2002 decision, as he has recently maintained that he was “not aware” of his government’s decision to that effect. Chief Minister Dharam Singh had also talked tough of late with regard to the issue.
