Ruling BJP legislator A.S. Jayaram reportedly ‘celebrated’ his 51st birthday amid lockdown at a village in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district, the police said on Friday.
“Jayaram’s family members and relatives celebrated his birthday in a house compound at Ankalakuppe village in Gubbi taluk where hundreds of his supporters also gathered to felicitate him,” Gubbi police inspector P.M. Nagaraj told IANS over phone.
Gubbi in Tumakuru district is 120km northwest of Bengaluru.
Jayaram won from the Turuvakare segment in the same district in the May 2018 Assembly elections.
“As Jayaram’s birthday coincided with the Hanuman Jayanthi function in the area, food was served to the people who gathered at the Anjaneya Swamy temple in the adjacent Manikuppe village,” Nagaraj said.
Denying that the legislator violated the lockdown, Nagaraj said the birthday function was held in a compound at Ankalakuppe whereas free food was served in the temple vicinity at Manikuppa, which is an adjacent village.
“Social distancing was, however, not observed, when food (lemon rice) was served, as the village folk scrambled to grab the food packets,” admitted Nagaraj.
Jayaram was not reachable on his phone till late night.-IANS News
