Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS) 

Bengaluru, Nov 15: BJP has come with a new plan to attract the votes of the strong Vokkaliga community in the state in the upcoming by-elections. It is mulling of renaming the Indira Canteens to Kempegowda Canteen. 

India Canteens were started in 2017 by the then chief minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah. However, BJP has thought of changing the same to Kempegowda, who contributed a lot towards the creation of Bengaluru. 

The BJP government, led by chief minister B S Yediyurappa, however, has agreed to give only 25% of the cost of running these canteens. So it is said that once the by-elections in the state are over, the government will be increasing the aid by change of name. 

Earlier, minister for Kannada and culture department C T Ravi had given a clue of changing the names of Indira Canteen to Annapurna Canteen. The minister who had spoken in July, even before the legislative party meeting of BJP, had said that the coalition government of Congress and JD (S) had taken some political decisions and BJP would also take its own decisions during its time. 

C T Ravi had said that it would not be possible to drop all the schemes started by the coalition government. At the same time, it would also not be possible to continue all the new schemes started by the former government. 

BBMP commissioner Anil Kumar, who had conducted a press conference in this regard in the month of September, had said that the BJP government has negated the appeal of BBMP for grant to run the Indira Canteen. Though the finance department had agreed to give maximum of 25% grant, the BBMP has asked for at least 50%. 

Anil Kumar said, "I had written a letter to the BJP government to mark a grant of Rs 210 crore in the budget for the year 2019-20 to maintain Indira Canteens. However, the state government has not kept any funds in reserve for this cause. Then I wrote a second and third letter also. But so far the government or the BBMP has not reserved any funds for this purpose. Now the time has come to close down the Indira Canteens."