Woman protests outside Bommai's residence, demands govt to give work to all anchors

Bengaluru: A flash sit-in protest was staged in front of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s residence in R.T. Nagar area by a women demanding that the state government must provide fair representation to all programme presenters/anchors in the state, instead of only two.

Girija was holding a placard, written in Kannada, which read that governments change, ministers change, officers are transferred, new singers are hired, musicians are hired and even Chief Ministers are replaced at will, but why do anchors of all government programmes remain the same for all programmes, year after year?

She told reporters that only two anchors – Aparna and Shankar Prakash – have been hired for all government programmes for the last two decades.

“Not a single programme is allotted to any other anchor in the state. There are at least 20 anchors working on a contract basis in Doordarshan and Akashwani, besides this there are several anchors available with Kannada and Culture Departments. None of them, including me, have got a single chance till date to anchor a programme that is organised by the state government,” she alleged.

“How can the government allow monopoly of two anchors for the last two decades ignoring all anchors in the state?” she asked.

“Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s oft repeated words ‘Sarve jana sukhino bhavantu (Let the people of the world be happy)’ and ‘Sarvarigu samapalu Sarvarigu samabalu’ (Everybody is equal, Everyone gets equal share), respectively, for providing equal opportunities is never followed in the case of providing opportunities to us,” she alleged.

Girija also rued that due to public programmes becoming scarce by the day ever since the pandemic broke in March last year, all anchors are facing several hardships and the state government must take a considerate view of her demand.

Police, who were present outside the Chief Minister’s residence, detained her but let her go after warning her for holding flash strike in front of the CM’s residence.

(With inputs from IANS)