SMOOTH ROADS, ROUGH RIDE

These days the village8212;fast on the road to becoming a full-fledged town8212;is soaking in the glory of being the hometown of Karnataka8217;s first BJP chief minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa.

The velvety roads around Shikharipura, locals say, are the result of Yeddyurappa8217;s 20-month tenure as deputy chief minister in the previous H.D. Kumaraswamy-led JDS-BJP coalition regime. It was his first chance at doing something tangible for the constituency that elected him to the assembly five times since 1983.

On November 12, when the one-time Shikharipura rice mill clerk became chief minister, 8220;it was like a festival here8221;, says Basavarajappa, the headmaster at the century-old government primary school. Buntings, posters and cutouts carrying congratulatory messages for the new CM hung around street corners.

Many in Shikharipura had started to believe that Yeddyurappa was not destined to become chief minister with power slipping from his grasp on more than one occasion.

The nearly 48,000 population of the taluk is now hoping that Yeddyurappa can hang on to power long enough to ensure that the village gets more than smooth approach roads.

Visible signs of Shikharipura being a VVIP village are few but for the main roads and properties owned by the new chief minister. The village still has to deal with open drains, a water scarcity and old crumbling houses in the parts inhabited by the poorer people. Children of the poor have no option but to cramp in dark, dank classrooms in the local Kannada and Urdu schools. A mid-day meal served on plates gifted by Yeddyurappa on his 64th birthday helps attract children to the primary school.

At the only local hospital, patients wait in long queues and hours for their turn to meet the handful of doctors. 8220;Doctors keep getting transferred. Almost every time we come, we have to meet a new doctor,8221; says Shankara, a patient at the Shikharipura hospital.

8220;Shikharipura is still under construction. When he was deputy CM, Yeddyurappa had cleared schemes worth over Rs 20 crore. These will be implemented over the coming months,8221; says local councilor and Shikharipura BJP general secretary K.G. Vasanth Gowda.

There are signs of construction everywhere8212;pipes have been laid out along the road to Shimoga as part of a project to pump water to Shikharipura from a lake 15 km away. Several key buildings including the taluk office and the local hospital are getting makeovers. A new college and a polytechnic institute are under construction. Yeddyurappa has also granted funds to start modifying the drainage systems, says the local councilor.

But not everybody is sure that Shikharipura will benefit from Yeddyurappa8217;s rise. 8220;All these construction projects that he has sanctioned involve kickbacks from contractors. Only a few people will benefit, not the poor of Shikharipura,8221; says B. Lingamurthappa, a farmer who complained that he received no help from Yeddyurappa when he suffered losses in a fire accident at his house.

During his tenure as deputy chief minister, one of the criticisms levelled against Yeddyurappa and his chief minister colleague H.D. Kumaraswamy was that they cornered a major chunk of the Rs 47-crore grants on offer by the state finance commission for their own constituencies.

While Kumaraswamy has managed to transfer Ramanagaram into a new district and a virtual extension of Bangalore, Shikaripura8217;s future hinges on Yeddyurappa8217;s.

-Johnson T.A.