Which Gowda is it, anyway?

S R Jindal, chairman and managing director of Jindal Aluminium, speaking at the inauguration of the Global Investors’ Meet 2012 in Bangalore appeared so awed by the occasion that he mixed up the names of important dignitaries. What must have irked the BJP, the ruling party in the state, was his reference to Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda as D V Sadananda Deve Gowda. That’s a huge faux pas, since he was confusing the chief minister with former Prime Minister and leader of rival party Janata Dal (S) H D Deve Gowda. Indeed, the shared surname has been a bane for the present chief minister, because whenever someone speaks of a Gowda, people associate the name with Deve Gowda even now.