A bowl of curds seems to have churned up quite a commotion in Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s private office, leading to a minor internal investigation.
It all began with a social media post by an organic farm products producer, who claimed that a woman, identifying herself as Shubha, a personal secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), called to highlight a complaint from “Siddaramaiah’s sister."
The innocuous post was put up by Madhu Chandan, a farmer and the CEO of Organic Mandya, a company which has gained popularity for selling millets and other products directly from farmers to urban consumers.
Chandan had excitedly posted earlier: “Pleasant Surprise. We received a call from the Karnataka Chief Minister’s office, and to my surprise, the lady on the line introduced herself as the Personal Secretary to the CM. She mentioned that our Honorable CM had stopped consuming curd for the past week! Intrigued, we asked how we were connected with this. She explained that the CM is used to the curd made from Organic Mandya’s desi milk! Ooops… why did he stop consuming it? She said the curd had been watery lately, which led him to pause. Curious, we mentioned that to our knowledge, we don’t supply milk directly to the CM’s residence. That’s when she clarified—our milk is supplied to the CM’s sister’s house from our JP Nagar store, and from there, the curd makes its way to the CM’s home!"
“And then came another pleasant surprise—she added, ‘Do you know who referred your milk to the CM?’ We asked eagerly, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘It was the Deputy Chief Minister who recommended your products to us, and they are SUPER!’ Now our CM has resumed consumption of the curds after the matter was resolved!!! Feeling incredibly proud to know that our Honorable CM & DCM have started consuming our curd & milk! When you create great products, word of mouth really is the best!
**P.S.** I am unable to tag our CM as his office hasn’t created a handle on LinkedIn yet!"
According to the post, Organic Mandya immediately sought to address the quality issue after receiving the call from Siddaramaiah’s household. However, when this came to the attention of the CMO, it was revealed that not only was the caller fake, but Siddaramaiah does not have a sister living in Bengaluru. In fact, he has brothers, and his only sister passed away several years ago.
The sudden appearance of a “sister" who allegedly knew Siddaramaiah’s preferences for curds and where they were sourced raised serious concerns.
“We conducted an internal inquiry and found that the call made by the woman claiming to be Shubha was fake and there is no one by that name who works in any of the Chief Minister’s offices," confirmed a senior CMO official to News18.
When News18 contacted Madhu Chandan, he described how the caller claimed that the milk provided by the company was diluted, leading to watery curds. The woman also spoke of Siddaramaiah’s sister, living in Basavangudi, Bengaluru, who prepared fresh curds for him daily and had remarked on the quality of the milk.
What caught the company’s attention was the caller’s mention of Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, claiming he had introduced Organic Mandya to the Siddaramaiah family.
“When we received the call, we decided to verify it with our friend and MLA Darshan Puttanaiah. We later learned that the call was not genuine and that the Chief Minister does not have a sister supplying him with curds. The woman had specifically mentioned the Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar, which surprised us as she correctly knew we supply organic products to his residence," Chandan told News18.
Although the issue involved just one litre of milk per day, allegedly provided to the residence of “Siddaramaiah’s sister," the CMO deemed it important to investigate why someone would misuse the names of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister over a bowl of curd.
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