Ashwini M Sripad By Express News Service BENGALURU: They don’t need a pass to enter the Vidhana Soudha! Neither the pigeons nor the rats which have a free run there. That there are no checks was evident on Monday. And the CM got a first-hand experience of how slack maintenance at the corridors of power could cause embarrassment. Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and a delegation of diplomats, including Iran’s ambassador to India Dr Ali Chegeni, entered the conference hall for high-level discussions. All went well for a few minutes. Then a rancid smell hit them and a red-faced CM became livid. No one knew where the foul smell was coming from. The CM smelt a rat! But later it turned out it was something else. And he walked out with his nose up, literally. The VVIPs had no option but to shift from there to the CM’s office to continue with their talks.On Tuesday, realising that the CM was angry, officials of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Services and Public Works Department scurried here and there looking for the source of the bad smell. They almost turned the conference hall upside down. They spent the whole day on this mission bending or craning their necks looking for the elusive smell-giver. Finally, they followed their nose. And by evening, they discovered what caused the foul smell and from where it was coming. It was not the poor rats, but six pigeons dead.The PWD had got a wooden panel fixed on the walls of the Conference Hall (Room number 313) on the third floor to give it an aesthetic look. RAT menace another headache Vidhana Soudha and surrounding buildings have to contend with rat menace. The state government has given tender to Central Warehousing Corporation to catch the rats in Vidhana Soudha, Vikas Soudha and MS Building. The government has paid close to Rs 9 lakh for this. The reason for rats proliferating here is hundreds of files, papers and leftover food ‘No meeting at Vidhana Soudha conference hall for next couple of days’ Since pigeons root for high places, they naturally come there like homing pigeons. There is a closed window in the hall, behind which the wooden panels are placed. And AC duct wires and other electric wires run between the wall and the wooden panels. Since there was a gap on the top, pigeons which fell into the trap could not fly back. That gap which had not been closed had become the death trap for the birds. Official sources from DPAR told The New Indian Express, they do not know when this incident happened. Only when the stink became unbearable that they thought it could be a dead rat.“Officials started cleaning in the morning, they removed the entire wooden panels and removed the dead pigeons. Later, the wooden panels were put back. However, the bad smell is still there. No meeting will be held at the Conference Hall for the next couple of days,” officials said. RAT menace another headache Vidhana Soudha and surrounding buildings have to contend with rat menace. The state government has given tender to Central Warehousing Corporation to catch the rats in Vidhana Soudha, Vikas Soudha and MS Building. The government has paid close to Rs 9 lakh for this. The reason for rats proliferating here is hundreds of files, papers and leftover food

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