Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Shivakumar on Sunday accepted his resignation and has dissolved the minority wing. The AICC is acting on a report from general secretary Abhishek Datta who has identified prominent Muslim leaders who worked against the party’s interests.
Also Read: Pressure mounts for cabinet rejig in Karnataka, Congress MLAs to meet high command in Delhi
The party is also said to have asked CM’s political secretary Nasir Ahmed to resign and is probing the role of housing minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan. Only Rizwan Arshad and Salim Ahmed are said to have played a role to mitigate the Muslim rebellion in Davanagere South while Khan and Nasir were said to have dodged the task.
A section of senior Muslim Congress leaders had been under the AICC lens since the onset of the campaigning in Davanagere South as the party suspected they were working for rebel Muslim candidates instead of the official nominee Samarth Shamanur.
Muslims, who are dominant in the constituency, were upset that the party chose to field a scion of Shamanur family for the seat, which faced a bypoll due to the death of sitting MLA Shamnur Shivashankarappa. Sections of local Muslims leaders accused the Congress of reneging on a commitment the late leader had made that the seat would go to a Muslim leader after his lifetime.
Also Read: Congress set to lose Karnataka bypolls as per govt intelligence report: BJPThe AICC leadership, based on a report, believes some of its own leaders were behind the crowding of the fray with Muslim candidates including one from the SDPI. A miffed Zameer Ahmed Khan, who was campaigning in Kerala, showed up on the final leg of the campaign in Davanagere South.
One of the chief reasons for the anger among Muslims was the party wooing the Shamanur family in all elections. While Samarth Shamanur’s father SS Mallikarjun is an MLA from Davanagere North and is also a minister, mother Prabha Mallikarjun is the Lok Sabha member from Davanagere.
The AICC has been worried that a section of its own partymen stoking trouble might end up with the BJP walking away with the seat in a terrible loss of face for the Siddaramaiah regime.
