Bengaluru: BJP Minister and Congress MLA spar over protocol at library inauguration

A Congress MLA and a BJP minister who had lost an election to him locked horns over the inauguration of a digital library in Bengaluru rural district on Thursday.

When Sharath Bache Gowda, MLA from the Hoskote constituency, cut a ribbon to inaugurate the digital library, Small Scale Industries and Municipal Administration Minister M T B Nagaraj said that protocol was not being followed at the function, leading to heated arguments between them.

After his expulsion from the BJP, Sharath contested the Hoskote by-election in 2019 as an independent and defeated Nagaraj, who had left the Congress to join the BJP. Nagaraj later became a minister in the BJP government after being elected to the legislative council in 2020. Sharath is now a Congress legislator.