Karnataka Govt Forms Nine-Member Committee On Designing A Separate Flag For State:- A nine-member committee has been formed by the Karnataka Government to submit a report on designing a separate flag for the State. The report also includes a legal stand for it.

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah defending the move said there is no constitutional provision against it. Karnataka will be the second State to have its official flag after Jammu and Kashmir, if the flag comes into being. The State enjoys a special status under Article 370 of the Constitution.

After a representation from noted Kannada writer and journalist Patil Puttappa, and social worker Bheemappa Gundappa Gadada, the committee, was set up last month. The committee is headed by the principal secretary, Department of Kannada and Culture. In their representation, Puttappa and Gadada had requested the Government to design a separate flag for ‘Kannada Naadu’ and accord it legal standing. The Secretaries to the departments of Personnel and Administrative Services, Home, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, as also president of Kannada Sahitya Parishat, chairman of Kannada Development Authority, and vice-chancellor of Kannada University, Hampi comprise as the panel members.

The Director of Department of Kannada and Culture will be the member secretary to the committee.

To commemorate State formation day, the un-official but widely regarded red and yellow ‘Kannada flag’ is hoisted in every nook and corner of the State on November one every year. The Kannada activists used in the form of scarf, which was designed by Veera Senani Ma. Ramamurthy in the 1960s.

“The move of the Siddaramaiah government to form a committee is being considered as a departure from the stand taken by the earlier BJP government. The DV Sadananda Gowda-led BJP government in 2012 had informed the Karnataka High Court that it has not accepted the suggestions to declare the bi-colour Kannada flag as the State’s official flag, as having a separate flag would be against the unity and integrity of the country.”

“Siddaramaiah sought to know if there was any provision in the Constitution which prohibits the State from having its own flag.”

“Is there any provision in the Constitution? Have you come across any provision in the Constitution? Did BJP people come across the provision? Then why they are raising it?”

“Election will be in the month of April-May not now, not tomorrow, not next month.”

Hitting out at the BJP, Siddaramaih said, “Did BJP people say they do not want flag for Karnataka State? Let them make a statement that ‘we do not want flag for Karnataka State’. The BJP people always level such false allegation.”

SUPRAJA