Bengaluru:  The chaos and confusion in Karnataka’s politics is leading to a lot of footfalls in South India’s famed places of worship. Even the Rebel MLAs today visited Shirdi Saibaba Temple. 

Among the leaders of political parties who are seeking divine intervention, focus is on highly superstitious member of the Gowda family, H.D. Revanna.

In a week he has travelled to Tirupati’s famous Balaji temple and also the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysuru, hoping his beliefs will help save the Congress-JD(S) government led by his younger brother H.D. Kumaraswamy, which is teetering on the edge of collapse. Interestingly, Revanna is moving around barefoot and even in the corridors of Vidhana Soudha.

The Minister yesterday morning visited Chamundeshwari Temple in Mysuru.  On Tuesday, he was in Sringeri seeking the blessings of goddess Sharadambe at Sharada Peetha. On Wednesday, he left for Tirupati. To facilitate Revanna’s smooth Darshan, Kumaraswamy had sent a letter to the Joint Executive Officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), requesting for VVIP break darshan early morning on Thursday. 

A VVIP break darshan is available only for the President, Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, Ministers, top political groups and leaders, Judges and Civil Servants. This darshan allows VVIPs to stand in front of the idol for some time and will be offered Theertha and Arathi. 

There is an interesting point in Revanna walking barefoot. He made sure that his father H.D. Deve Gowda walked barefoot to file his nomination papers for this year’s Tumakuru Lok Sabha seat. Following his son’s advice, Deve Gowda walked barefoot braving the scorching sun to file his papers. As a result, both of his feet were swollen with burns, which later turned into wounds. Unable to walk, the 86-year-old JD(S) patriarch has to rest for a long time at his home in Padmanabhanagar. Deve Gowda, however, lost the elections and his barefooted walk did not yield any results. 

Meanwhile, to keep their flocks together, all three political parties — Congress, BJP and JD(S) — have herded most of their legislators to either resorts or hotels in and around Bengaluru. The rebel legislators who have tendered their resignations are staying put in a Mumbai hotel.

Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar met rebel Congress MLA MTB Nagaraj early this morning in a bid to convince him to withdraw his resignation. Shivakumar who arrived at MTB Nagaraj’s residence at Garudacharpalya even before dawn held talks with Nagaraj for over 6 hours. After a marathon meeting with Shivakumar, MTB Nagaraj said that he had sought some more time for taking an appropriate decision. Shivakumar later left for Chikkaballapura to meet another rebel Congress MLA Dr. K. Sudhakar.