Near total bandh in Ramanagara

NT Correspondent

Ramanagara: A bandh observed in Ramanagara on Friday gained enthusiastic support from nearly all sections of society.

All establishments including schools, colleges and the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) yard remained closed. However, some trading did take place at the popular cocoon market in the afternoon.

The strike was called because of the plan to shift the Kengal Hanumanthaiah Medical College from Ramanagara, which was to come up at the proposed campus of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), to Kanakapura town.

There were also protests in the city that took on a political colour as Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, his brother and Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh and their protégé and Ramanagara MLA Iqbal Hussain were blamed for engineering the shift.

Shivakumar is the Kanakpura MLA. The protesters were a motley crew and saw participation from JD(S) leaders like A Manjunath and BJP MLC CP Yogeshwar, besides the Kengal Hanumanthaiah Medical College Horata Samithi, pro-Kannada organisations and progressive groups.

JD(S) legislature party leader HD Kumaraswamy and his son and party youth president Nikhil extended support to the bandh.

“Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil said that the medical college would be shifted to Ramanagara under pressure from Deputy CM DK Shivakumar,” Nikhil alleged.