Bengaluru, July 31(UNI) JD(S) on Friday decided to petition the Karnataka Governor on State government's alleged 'anti-farmer' amendments to Acts, days after threatening a state-wide agitation on the issue.

"The party has convened a meeting of party MLAs, defeated candidates and district presidents at the party office on August 4 to discuss in detail about protests against the anti-farmer amendments by the state government,” former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Devegowda was quoted as saying by his office in a release here on Friday.

He said they had also decided to hold a separate meeting with JD(S) Taluk Presidents. “On all these matters, we will also write a letter to the Governor”.

The party would also bring to the Governor’s notice, the state government not convening the assembly session, he said.

Gowda had on Tuesday threatened to launch a state-wide stir against the amendments to the Karnataka Land Reforms Act and had demanded its immediate rollback. He had also spoken against amendments to the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act.

Gowda said there was no need to unnecessarily create an issue by dropping lessons on Tipu Sultan from school textbooks and added that the government must make a decision that is acceptable to all. “There are many residential schools in the name of Tipu in Gulbarga, Bijapur, Srirangapatna, Ramanagara, Dharwad. When the government opened those residential schools there was no opposition,” he said.

Chapters on controversial 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan and his father Haider Ali were among those dropped from the class 7 Social Science test books, following the Karnataka government’s decision to reduce syllabi for 2020-21 due to COVID-19 pandemic. However, the government subsequently asked the Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) to put on hold the trimmed syllabus of books that omitted chapters on Tipu Sultan, following criticism from various quarters.

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