Bengaluru: The Congress has served a show-cause notice to senior party leader and member of Legislative Council (MLC) B.K. Hariprasad over his purported public criticism of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at a backward classes conference last Saturday in Bengaluru.
In a press statement Tuesday, the disciplinary action committee of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) said party national president, Mallikarjun Kharge, had received a complaint of “violation of party discipline” by Hariprasad, who was made a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on 20 August.
“He (Hariprasad) is accused of criticising Chief Minister Shri Siddaramaiah publicly and sharing the dias with BJP and YSR Congress Party leaders at a backward class conference at Bengaluru on 9 September, 2023,” said a statement issued by Tariq Anwar, member-secretary of the party’s disciplinary committee, Tuesday. Hariprasad is required to respond to the notice within 10 days, explaining his purported comment.
Hariprasad’s comments are being seen by the public and political observers alike as indicative of the sharpening rift within Karnataka Congress, after the party stormed to power in the state following the 10 May elections, defeating the then-incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In an apparent reference to Siddaramaiah, Hariprasad, a Billava (OBC) community leader reportedly said at last week’s conference, “(Former assembly Speaker) Kagodu Thimmappa was a real socialist who led the Kagod protest (a peasant uprising in the 1950s which set the scene for land reforms). He was a samajwadi (socialist) and not a majwadi (reveler) in the name of samajwadi. He does not have a proper car even today. People wearing a Hublot watch, a panche (lungi worn by men) over khaki shorts, cannot claim to be socialists.”
Siddaramaiah, a self-proclaimed socialist, was embroiled in a controversy during his previous stint as the CM in 2016, when he was seen sporting a Hublot (Swiss brand) watch, purportedly valued at Rs 70 lakh. As the controversy snowballed, Siddaramaiah claimed his Dubai-based cardiac surgeon friend, Dr. Girish Chandra Varma, had gifted the watch to him, and handed it over to then-Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, adding that it would be government property.
The controversy refused to die down, however, as the Opposition used the incident to debunk Siddaramaiah’s claims of being a socialist.
“I have been issued a show cause notice, I may get the hard copy today and after that, I have to reply,” Hariprasad told ThePrint Wednesday. He did not emphasise on the problems within the Congress and said it was between him and the party.
Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah refused to respond to questions about Hariprasad’s remarks. “Did he say my name? I won’t react to general statements,” he told the media in Bengaluru Monday.
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Rift widening?
Sources in the Congress said Hariprasad, a Congress MLA, is among the senior leaders in the state unit of the party, upset over being left out of the Karnataka cabinet.
Soon after the 10 May assembly elections results were announced, Siddaramaiah had emerged as the frontrunner to the top post. But then Karnataka Pradesh Congress President (KPCC) chief and present deputy CM, D.K. Shivakumar, too staked claim for the post, fueling the already existing divide within the party.
There were other senior leaders whose names did the rounds within the Congress. Though the party had won a decisive 135 out of 224 seats, internal differences started to widen, with the likes of Hariprasad going public with their grievances.
“B.K. Hariprasad is a senior leader, was an AICC general secretary, a Rajya Sabha member, and the (legislative) council chairman here. But despite all this, the party will not accept his statements and will take this very seriously,” M.B. Patil, senior Congress leader and Karnataka’s minister for large and medium scale industries, told reporters Monday, on the ongoing controversy.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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