Amid high drama, police removed a pole with a Kannada flag that was erected by Kannada activists without due clearance from the government in front of the city corporation building in Belagavi on Monday.
Activists carried a metal pole painted in yellow and red, colours of the Kannada flag, and placed it outside the corporation compound next to the Inspector General of Police office. They unfurled the Kannada flag and began singing the National Anthem.
They raised slogans in favour of Kannada and Karnataka. They felicitated Kasturi Bavi, Kannada activist who had vowed not to walk with slippers till the Kannada flag was hoisted on the BCC office. Activists Srinivas Talukar and Basavaraj Doddi had brought along a pair of white slippers for the activist. She wore them on the spot and announced that Kannada groups had been able to do what successive governments had failed to do - fly the Kannada flag on the BCC premises.
Ms. Bavi told journalists that BCC members had vehemently opposed attempts to unfurl the Kannada flag since independence. She also alleged that the State government had shifted the BCC to its new premises from the old office in Khade Bazaar only because Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti members did not allow the Kannada flag over the old building.
When the police tried to foil their attempt to install an unauthorised structure, a team of Kannada Rakshana Vedike activists had a long verbal spat with them. The police told the activists that they were welcome to put up a flag post after due permission from the Urban Development Ministry and the district administration. But the activists were in no mood to listen. They put ropes around their necks and tied it to the pole, to threaten the police that if the pole was removed, they would end their lives.
However, after a few hours, the controversy ended with the police dispersing them and taking out the pole.
Lakshmi Hebbalkar, MLA, described the police action was unwarranted as she felt there was no law that the Kannada flag should not be unfurled in Karnataka.
