TWO FACES TO PICK FROM

It's a fuss over a very public birthday bash. Starting this week, Congress leaders in Karnataka are planning to hold celebratory events in various cities in the state as a run-up to a grand public rally in August.

- Ajay Sukumaran

The occasion? Siddaramaiah, former chief minister and Leader of Opposition in the assembly, turns 75.

The rally planned for the Congress leader's birthday on August 3 in the central Karnataka town of Davanagere has been in the news for the past couple of weeks. Firstly, its organisers want to make it a big show-about five lakh people from various parts of the state are expected to attend. But more significantly, it had piqued curiosity as to how other prominent leaders chiefly D.K. Shivakumar, who heads the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee-would respond to what's perceived as a bid for oneupmanship.

Siddaramaiah has pointed out that he has seldom celebrated his birthday, so as to deny any role in drawing up the plan. In fact, for a long time he had put down August 12, 1948, as his date of birth, till he happened to visit his old school where records showed it was August 3, 1947, he told an interviewer.