Billava Warriors raise the ante against BJP govt

Mangaluru: The apex youth body of Billavas on the coastal area (including Eedigas and Namdharis) 'Billava warriors' has raised the ante against the BJP government in the state. In a significant move, the organisation has termed the BJP government's move to set up the Narayanaguru Development Corporation with just Rs. 10 crores in the corpus as a 'knee-jerk' decision.

Its leader, Padmaraj Ramaiah, has stated that "when the government dropped the proposal to constitute a Billava development cell under the OBC development corporation and announced Naryanaguru Development Corporation, we were happy that some concrete steps were being taken, but the happiness was short-lived as the government constituted Naryanaguru Development Corporation with just Rs. 10 crore corpus on January 6. This was nothing but an attempt to mislead the Billava-Eediga-Namdhari community.

The government was trying to create confusion in the matter and derail the focus of the community in claiming their rightful welfare measures" He said, "Our community has 26 smaller subcastes apart from Billavas, Eedigas, and Namdharis, and our demand to constitute a government body for the development of our community in the last 10 years had not yielded any result, but now the government's decision to constitute the Corporation with a meagre corpus will not do any good to the community."

It could be recalled here that the community had demanded a corpus of Rs. 500 crores in the corporation with proper official machinery. But when on January 5 the government called a group of people close to the ruling party and announced the formation of the corporation, the innocent Billava leaders were happy and even congratulated the Chief Minister and other government functionaries. "We are not able to gauge the intention of the government behind the creation of confusion." This situation has disappointed the Billava community in a big way and they are now suspicious of the government and the party that runs it' Padmaraj told.

Padmaraj's statement has come at a time when the Billava community stands at crossroads where they have to take a decision about their political course. It is another matter that the Billava-Eediga and Namdhari communities have supported the BJP as a political party to the hilt. Tall leaders like Janardhana Poojary and BK Hariprasad have time and again pointed out the BJP exploiting the community for their political ends.