Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar on Saturday expressed confidence that senior party leader MR Seetharam will not join the BJP.
Shivakumar said this a day after Seetharam, a former minister, publicly attacked the Congress leadership for the “injustice” he has faced over the years.
“After earning so much name from the Congress, why will he think of the BJP? He comes from a dignified family and won't make such a mistake,” Shivakumar said.
Shivakumar also said that he has information that the BJP is trying to bring Seetharam onboard. Speculation is that Seetharam might contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Chikballapur on the BJP’s ticket.
Seetharam, who belongs to a family that runs the MS Ramaiah brand of educational and healthcare institutions, has been sulking due to repeated denial of election tickets. He also belongs to the Balija community that has a sizable presence in Chikballapur, Kolar and Tumakuru districts. The community has a good number of votes in at least 40 assembly constituencies.
On Friday, Seetharam organised a convention with his supporters. “[Seetharam] is a senior leader. He shouldn't have held a separate meeting,” Shivakumar said, adding that the Karnataka Congress disciplinary action committee will look into whether or not Seetharam displayed indiscipline.
“[Seetharam] was an MLA. We made him a minister. He was the floor leader in the upper house. We gave him the Malleswaram assembly ticket, but he backed out,” Shivakumar said.
Shivakumar explained why Seetharam could not get the ticket on multiple occasions. In 2020, Congress picked Naseer Ahmed and BK Hariprasad for the MLC tickets. The same year, the party fielded veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge as its Rajya Sabha candidate. Recently, the party decided to give the Rajya Sabha ticket to Jairam Ramesh and two MLC positions to M Nagaraju Yadav and K Abdul Jabbar.
“If we did something wrong, tell us,” Shivakumar said.
(Published 25 June 2022, 11:01 IST)
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