Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Karnataka state president Mukhyamantri Chandru addressing a press conference in Madikeri recently stressed on the need for a separate forest policy for the Kodagu district.
Chandru further said that applying the same forest policy from Bidar to Mysuru and Kodagu district kept many local issues alive and accused the successive governments of remaining indifferent to the man-animal conflict in Kodagu.
He urged the government to implement a distinct forest policy for Kodagu to protect the interests of the local people.
The AAP leader said that Kodagu district, despite its large geographical area, has only two Assembly constituencies. It is challenging for the elected representatives to cover all the areas to focus on development activities and demanded that the number of constituencies be increased from two to three.
He said the state government had adopted an authoritarian approach for not announcing elections for zilla and taluk panchayats.