Bengaluru: Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar on Thursday said the BJP’s Janotsav has been rechristened to “Jana Spandana” and now it will be held at Doddaballapur on Saturday, not Sunday as announced Wednesday.
“Utsava means festival. This word does not suit the situation we are in. We lost one of our cabinet colleagues Umesh Katti. And some other situations (rain distress) have also plagued us, you all know that. Under these circumstances, it is not appropriate to celebrate. Therefore, we changed the name of Janotsav to Jana Spandana, which is the report card of the party’s governance in the last three years,” he told a section of media here.
“The BJP held a meeting and arrived at a decision past midnight to prepone the Jana Spandana rally to September 10 at the same venue (Doddaballapur),” Dr Sudhakar, who hails from the neighbouring assembly constituency of Chikkaballapur, added.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had announced holding of Janotsav on Sunday, but in the midnight discussions attended by senior party leaders including general secretary Arun Singh, decided to prepone the event.
This was the third time the mega event was postponed. First it was scheduled to be held on July 28, but was cancelled following the murder of BJP youth leader Praveen Nettaru in Ballare village in Dakshina Kannada district.
The party then decided to hold the event on September 8, but again cancelled it due to the untimely death of Katti on late Tuesday night. Bommai then fixed the event on September 11.
Jana Spandana is a public rally to showcase BJP government’s three years of achievements, including Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s one year in office.
The event is crucial for the BJP from electoral point of view in the Old Mysuru region as it plans to gather over 2 lakh party workers from Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts.
BJP National President JP Nadda will preside over the event along with some central party leaders with an objective to send a very strong message to the people and opposition parties.
