Udupi: Kundapura Town Municipal Council is in controversy after it allegedly removed a cartoon by noted cartoonist Sathish Acharya.
In the cartoon, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is seen hiding behind Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to escape from Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is seen rushing towards them with Congress-mukt Bharath slogan.
Sathish Acharya, speaking to News18.com, said, “I draw cartoons on all political parties. I use cartoon corner hoarding to display some of them. In the past nobody troubled me. After I had put this cartoon up, a local Congress leader called me up and insisted that I remove it as it is offensive.”
“The very next day, Kundapura municipality removed it on the pretext of clearing the city of billboards. The Congress should be worried about the challenges before the party. It should not be afraid of a harmless cartoon,” he added.
Meanwhile, KPCC President and Karnataka Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara reacted to the controversy and said that he was not aware of any such development and the party has nothing to do with it.
Kundapura TMC clarified on the matter and said that they had removed all hoardings and billboards to beautify the town.
Soon after the cartoon was removed, cartoonist captioned the cartoon and tweeted: “This skeleton says a lot about the misplaced priorities of Congress party in India.”
Satish Acharya, hailing from Kundapura, has a fixed hoarding named Cartoon Corner and displays some of his best works in his locality.
