Bengaluru: Trouble is brewing in Karnataka Congress unit after the party-initiated action against two minority leaders -- Abdul Jabbar and Nasir Ahamed for their anti-party activities during the recent by-elections to Davanagere South Assembly constituency.
Interestingly, sword is hanging around Minister Zameer Ahamed Khan, a close associate of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is battling to become the minority leader of Karnataka state and Siddaramaiah looks helpless in the entire episode.
However, the episode has created rumbling within the Congress party and also drawn flak from various minority leaders, who are bent on targeting Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is also KPCC President. Shivakumar has dismissed allegations saying that the decision to imitate action against Abdul Jabbar and Nasir Hussain was taken by party central leadership and not by him.
The trouble started when the by-elections to Davanagere South and Bagalkot Assembly constituencies were announced. While taking a decision on candidates, Zameer Ahmed Khan pressed that the ticket should be given to Abdul Jabbar, since the constituency has over 75,000 minority votes. However, the seat fell vacant after death of Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who was representing the Assembly for more than 40 years. The party decided to give ticket to his grandson Samarth Shamanur.
Irked by the development, Zameer, Abdul Jabbar and Nasir Ahamed restrained themselves from campaigning in Davanagere and the reports started flowing that they also funded the SDPI candidate. Soon after the elections were over, Abdul Jabbar was issued with a notice, and he resigned as the President of KPCC Minority wing. Nasir Ahamed, who was Chief Minister's political advisor was sacked from the post. Though Zameer tried to talk to Siddaramaiah, the later pleaded helpless.
However, the development left the Siddaramaiah camp members red faced. On Thursday, during cabinet meeting, ministers like Priyank Kharge and Sathish Jarkiholi raised the issue and said that the action against the two leaders could have waited at least till the election results had come. By hurrying up the decision, the party was sending wrong signals to minorities. But D K Shivakumar bluntly said that there was enough evidence to prove that the two had joined hands with SDPI to divert the minority votes. If such things are not addressed in the early stage, such people can cause more damage to the party.
On Friday, former Minister K N Rajanna, who was sacked from the ministry under similar situation took a swipe at D K Shivakumar saying that the Siddaramaiah's supporters were being targeted in the party, which was damaging the party to a large extent.
``The action against the minority leaders is unwarranted and of late, the loyal party workers, who are Siddaramaiah supporters. However, Siddaramaiah is not defending his supporters on the party forums. I wonder why Siddaramaiah has become so weak,'' he added.
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At the same time, Minority religious leaders from all over Karnataka and various minority groups have expressed their displeasure over action initiated against the two minority leaders.
In a release, signed by Minority Community leaders from all the district, it said: ``the Karnataka Muslim organizations condemn the way Congress party is treating the minorities. Though the Muslim community is the main reason for Congress coming to the power in Karnataka, the government is not treating them properly and failed to give adequate representation to them in various appointments. The development of Davanagere by-election indicate that the Congress is treating Muslims as vote banks and nothing else. The community will not tolerate such injustice and treatment in future.''
