Mysuru: A meeting held at Chief Minister Siddharamaiah’s residence in Ramakrishnanagar here yesterday took a controversial turn after word went around that it was called by the CM’s son Dr. Yathindra, who neither holds any constitutional post nor is he an elected representative.

Senior officials from MUDA, CESC and other Departments attended the meeting reportedly convened by Dr. Yathindra, in which the Joint Secretary to the Chief Minister, M. Ramaiah was also present. According to sources, Dr. Yathindra asked the officials to address people’s issues at the earliest.

Later in the day, MUDA Commissioner Dr. M. Mahesh, speaking to SOM, claimed that Dr. Yathindra had not called the meeting. “The Joint Secretary to the Chief Minister had called us informing that a few farmers had come to the CM’s house and wanted to discuss some issues,” Dr. Mahesh said.

“When I went to the CM’s house, more than 50 people from different villages were present. The villagers had submitted  memoranda to take up repair works of roads, drainage system and augmentation of other civic amenities in their respective villages.

After receiving the letters, I returned to my work place,” the MUDA  Commissioner said and added that they hardly spent 10 minutes there and returned to office after collecting representations from the villagers.

Apart from Dr. Mahesh, MUDA SE M. Shivakumar, EE Raju, ZP, PWD, Revenue and other Department officials too took part in the meeting, according to sources.

It may be recalled here that Dr. Yathindra had participated in a similar meeting at CADA Office a few months ago, which was chaired by the CM’s Joint Secretary Ramaiah.

The CM had later justified Yathindra’s presence stating that he had just handed over applications collected from the public to the officials concerned and that he himself did not conduct any meeting.