Kumaraswamy’s son gets married amid lockdown

Bengaluru, April 17

The wedding of former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Gowda at a farmhouse near Bidadi in Karnataka’s Ramangara on Friday sparked a row over alleged violation of lockdown norms in the wake of the Covid outbreak.

After the marriage, Kumaraswamy took to Twitter to thank his party MLAs, leaders and workers for staying away from the event and blessing his son from their houses. In a series of tweets, he said social distancing was maintained and all precautionary measures were taken throughout the event.

“At a time when the whole world is rattled with the coronavirus pandemic, the marriage was performed in accordance with the government’s guidelines of social distancing and proper precautionary measures were taken,” Kumaraswamy tweeted.

However, the BJP trained its guns at Kumaraswamy, alleging that the JD(S) first family flouted the norms ignoring the Central government’s guidelines.

“The information we have is that 150 to 200 vehicles were given permission to attend the event. This happened when the social workers who want to serve the badly affected poor people are not getting permission to run their vehicles,” alleged Ramanagar BJP district president M Rudresh.

“Ramanagara has been safe from coronavirus and is in the green zone. If the disease spreads, the entire blame will be on the Deve Gowda family,” said Rudresh. — Agencies

No social distancing, masks

Taking objection to non-observance of social distancing by attendees, Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan said he had asked the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police to inquire into the charge that lockdown guidelines were violated. They reportedly did not wear masks also.