The many men behind the metro Various politicians have provided differing narratives on who helped bring the Metro to Bangalore. Former minister H N Ananth Kumar of the BJP claimed it was he who pushed the idea through during the NDAs 1999-2004 tenure under Atal Bihari Vajpayee; Congress leader N Dharam Singh said it was he who cleared the project at state level in 2004-05 when he was chief minister while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cleared it at the Centre; the Janata Dal Seculars H D Kumaraswamy said his party brought the project to the state during his father H D Deve Gowdas tenure as PM; and Congress leader S Siddaramaiah claimed his decisions as JDS finance minister had paved the way. Conceived in 1982,the idea was passed around by several governments but dumped for lack for viability till Bangalores explosive growth over the last decade encouraged funding agencies. Still on bsy duty B S Yeddyurappas imprisonment on charges of corruption since October 15 has not made life easier for his bodyguards. Every day the former chief minister has been in prison,his four-man cover has been reporting for duty outside the prison gates. They spend their day in their government jeep eating,sleeping,and lolling outside the prison wall,in the anticipation that Yeddyurappa will soon be granted bail and they would have to escort him home. The former chief ministers prison stay has in fact become the butt of many jokes. Ahead of a scheduled cabinet meeting last week the joke doing the rounds was that the meeting had been shifted to the prison premises since many ministers are lodged there. Complaints and backers The first complaints of corruption against B S Yeddyurappa by Sirajin Bhasha and K N Balraj,in January this year,were found to have been filed with the backing of the top leaders of the JDS. A recent complaint against JDS leader H D Deve Gowdas eldest son H D Balakrishna Gowda has been found to have been filed by a former secretary of Yeddyurappa. A complaint with a less obvious origin is that against BJP Home Minister R Ashok,filed by an RTI activist called Jayakumar Hiremath. The complainant,sources say,is an associate of Yeddyurappa aide V Sommanna propped up by the Yeddyurappa group in its internal war for control over the state BJP with the H N Ananth Kumar group. Power protests Amid a power shortage across the country,the Karnataka government resorted to a series of regular power shutdowns in Bangalore over the past month forcing innovative protests from some quarters. One popular local channel hosted a series of candlelight programmes in its studios including a panel discussion on the power crisis. The Telangana crisis that has brought down production at Singareni Colieries has hit coal supply to two thermal plants in Karnataka. The BJP government has blamed part of the shortfall on the Centres move to cut down Karnatakas allocation from the national grid. The states demand is 7,877 MW a day against an availability of 6,100 MW.
