From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Aug 31: People of Kushalnagar, who come under the jurisdiction of Somawarpet taluk in Kodagu district, are up in arms against the State Government and the elected representatives for not ensuring that the Siddaramaiah regime has not granted the taluk status despite the difficulties faced by them to travel more than 27 kms for their official work.
Kushalnagar is stuck in Somwarpet taluk for the foreseeable future and that for the second time the town has missed out, after a similar exercise in 2013-14 failed to grant the town taluk status.
The demand for a separate Cauvery taluk with headquarters at Kushalnagar has been growing over the years since residents find travelling 27km to Somwarpet to get their work done to be a waste of time.
People had high hopes from the then Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, who announced formation of 43 new taluks in his 2013-14 budget but they were disappointed when the town didn't make it to the list.
Following the then BJP government’s refusal to concede their demand, members of various pro-people organisations had formed Cauvery Taluk Horata Samithi under the presidentship of former Zilla Parishad member V P Shashidhar.
The committee even prepared the map of new Cauvery taluk comprising 19 Grama Panchayat areas, formed village committees. But the government did not heed to the demand of people.
A delegation from the district comprising Dinesh Gundu Rao, district minister M R Sitaram, MLAs Appachu Ranjan and K G Bopaiah met Siddaramaiah in March requesting for the creation of separate taluk, but the State Government did not include the town in the list of 49 new taluks approved by state cabinet on Monday.
Samithi president V P Shashidhar criticised elected representatives for their lack of will, which was the reason for the failure.
He said the State Government formed new taluks with below one lakh population while Cauvery taluk has 1.20 lakh population.
Shashidhar said the agitation would be intensified soon and we will compel the leaders of political parties to accept our demands, when they come to seek our votes in the assembly elections.