Mega event to mark Kheny's birthday today

DAVANAGERE: Ahkila Karnataka Ashok Kheny Youth Movement is holding a mega event to mark the 61st birthday of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise MD Ashok Kheny at Govt Boys' High School grounds here on Tuesday.
Hundreds of pontiffs, including Baba Ramdev, Sri Ravi Shankar, Balagangadhara Swami, Shivakumaraswami, Visveshatheertaswami, Veerendra Heggade, are expected to attend the event, according to the organizers.
Former Davanagere City Corporation deputy mayor and president of the organizing committee B Lokesh said over one lakh people will take part in the celebrations, for which a big stage measuring 60ftx300ft has been put up.
BIRTHDAY SANS CAKE
Bollywood singer Sonu Nigaam and some seers will arrive in four helicopters, after which flowers will be showered on the latter during a procession.
Food will be served from 9 am to 9 pm at Renuka Mandir (for men), Akkamahadevi choultry (for women), Narahari Sheth choultry (for VIPs) and Trishul Kala Bhavan (for pontiffs). Provisions for drinking, first-aid centres and 30 makeshift toilets have also been made.
The birthday celebrations will not have cake-cutting ceremony, but the pontiffs will light a lamp to mark the event. The main event will kick off by 11.30 am, after which Sonu Nigaam will enthrall the audience. Sandalwood musician Guru Kiran will perform in the evening. Actors Ambarish, Sudeep, Rajinikanth, Nana Patekar and others would attend the programme.
PARKING ZONES
To enable the parking of vehicles, which include about 500 buses and tractors, which ferry thousands of admirers from across the the state, three parking lots have been identified at Narahari Shet choultry, Ganesha Mills grounds and Pavillion Road.
SOME SORE NOTES
Former APMC chairman B M Satish and advocate Anish Pasha have criticized the arrangements, for which thousands of flex boards and big cut-outs have been put up across the city. They appealed to the pontiffs to think twice before attending a lavish event being held on the pretext of birthday.
They also took exception to the sobriquet __ `Sadhaneya Anveshaka' __ to be conferred on Kheny, "as he does not deserve it".
"Why has Kheny not extended any help to lakhs of flood victims last year? He would have helped them if he were a true philanthropist," they said.