Cyber citizens vote against Deve Gowda

Cyber citizens vote against Deve Gowda

Daily News and Analysis

The “son of the soil” may eye votes in the rural hinterland with his tirade against Infosys and its chairman NR Narayana Murthy, but he is losing the battle in the virtual world.

The war has spilled over to cyberspace with bloggers posting angry comments against former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda for playing politics with Murthy. “Hon’ble Deve Gowdaji – It’s time to apologise!” is a curt posting by engineer Vishal Sharma from Melbourne on vashistvishal.blogspot.com.
Gowda accused Murthy of conspiring with Maharashtra Governor SM Krishna to destabilise the government in Karnataka. This led to the IT icon’s resignation as head of Bangalore International Airport Ltd.

Many techies fear this could hurt Bangalore’s image and firms may shy away from the IT hotspot.

“I doubt if Infosys and other similar companies will continue to put up with the likes of Gowda for too long. If he remains in power, they will leave. Other states are willing to receive them,” Badri Seshadri, a Chennai techie, wrote on bseshadri.blogspot.com.

Bloggers have thrown in their lot with the IT industry, including Murthy, for protesting against the snarling traffic and potholed roads of Bangalore. “What these people don’t realise is that quality infrastructure will open gates of development in their state and benefit everybody. They are only concerned about their short-term benefits. Such myopic vision from a former PM is a matter of great shame for the whole country,” wrote Bhushan Y Nigale, software engineer in Bangalore, on fifthstep.blogspot.com.

“With this, Gowda has proved that politics will not let the rest of the society prosper,” Vinayak Kini posted on kinizone.blogspot.com with the catch line, “I knew it all along.”

Cyberspace is also full of barbs against Gowda gracing BangaloreIT.in, the annual event starting Wednesday. “What next? Lalu Prasad as chairman of a council on clean governance?” asked Abhinav at rndmthoughts.blogspot.com.