Karnataka:Speaker Khader and politician training Institute

Elsewhere in Karnataka, where Congress wave blown like wildfire, in South Canara again  BJP made s headway but for UT Khader Fareed. He is the lone Congress  candidate elected to the Assembly from Mangaluru Assembly constituency. This shows how Khader stood above all political theories. He is a popular mass leader and drawn support from all sections of the society. He is not only minorities leader but takes care of all castes and communities of his region. He is a law graduate and a five time MLA. He was a cabinet minister in holding health and family welfare, housing and urban development departments in earlier Congress government.

Khader is the 23rd Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.The 54-year-old is the second-youngest Speaker of the pp after K.R. Ramesh Kumar, who became the Speaker at the age of 43 in 1994 when H.D. Deve Gowda was the Chief Minister. He is the first Muslim to serve as Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. Khader is a soft spoken and gentleman. He wanted to be a minister but circumstances made him to this chair. Unlike many other senior leaders like Deshapande, BR Patil, Jayachandra and others, he accepted the offer made by the high command and became the Speaker. All others who refused the offer neither got ministerial berth nor any other lucrative post. In a way Khader is lucky to accept the post otherwise he would not have got any thing. Let us hope he will succeed in this hard job.

Karnataka Assembly Speaker UT Khader is setting  an institute  in Karnataka to train aspiring politicians. Khader said that the Political Training Institute of Karnataka will offer a one-year course for degree holders. Unlike medical, engineering and law colleges that train aspiring doctors, engineers and lawyers, respectively, there is no institute to train aspiring politicians. While they will have theory classes for six months, the remaining six months will be practical classes which will also include an internship. The syllabus of the course will be framed keeping in mind the requirements of politicians, their support staff, social workers, and government employees.  

The Speaker stated that the syllabus will be prepared in consultation with the School of Government, a private institute in Pune. Khader also assured that the institute will be set up at a suitable location at the earliest with full-time teaching faculty. The training programme organised for first-time legislators recently on the outskirts of Bengaluru was successful and the result will be known during the upcoming Budget session. But it received lot of criticism from intellectual community including congress sympathisers for inviting self styled hindu religious preachers like Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji and right wing writer SL Byrappa. However, the controversy subsided with the beginning of the first session of newly constituted Karnataka Legislative Assembly. 

He remembers when he first became an MLA, he was unaware of the functioning of the legislature, and was patiently guided by the late R Dhruvanarayan, also a legislator. Thus, the training institute will prove to be useful for all the would be legislators. Still its modalities are not finalised. We don't know whether it is a government or privately administered institute. What would be the future of those trained here is all to be decided by Speaker Khader in due course. Best wishes for his extraordinary initiative.

( Dr Mysi Patil is the State Correspondent)