Bantwal :  Bantwal units of the BJP and Raitha Morcha  staged a protest in front of the MESCOM office at B.C.Road on Monday August 4 against the erratic power cuts and ‘anti-people’ polices of the State Government. Earlier, the protestors took out a protest march from B.C. Road to the MESCOM office at Kaikunje.

The protestors demanded an end to erratic power cuts, supply of three phase power for a minimum of eight hours, to replace  old, burnt transformers and to  provide early power connection to irrigation pumpsets of farmers. They also demanded regularisation of illegal pumpsets and also to  appoint required number of linemen.

Padmanabha Kottari, former MLA, Sulochana Bhat, State BJP Vice President, G Ananda, Bantwal BJP Chief and others addressed the protestors.

ZP Member Jayashree Pudu, Bantwal APMC Chief Nemiraj Rai, Taluk Panchayat President Yashwanth Deraje and several others participated in the protest.

A memorandum enlisting various demands was submitted to MESCOM officer Umeshchandra on the occasion.

In Karkala: The BJP Raitha Morcha also organised a protest in front of MESCOM office at Karkala.  Mutluppadi Satish Shetty, Udupi District Raitha Morcha General Secretary  said the  unscheduled load shedding has hit hard the farmers and demanded an end to the same lest a severe protest would be organised.

Protestors submitted a memorandum to MESCOM officials.  Manjunath Nayak, BJP Taluk unit General Secretary, Ravindra Shetty, District General Secretary and  Raghuram Shetty, taluk unit Vice President  were among others present.

Handful of  protestors : The organisers were disappointed as only a handful of BJP workers took part in the protest. It is learnt, only 15 party men participated.  As the party had said it would  be a massive protest,  at least 7 police personnel including the ASI were on security duty.