ZP prez poll fiasco: Congress members blame local leaders

Say upset with legislators choice, they supported ex-BJP member

 The cold war among the local leaders and members of the Congress, which began post Zilla Panchayat president and vice-president polls, continues unabated.

In a new development, the nine members of the ZP belonging to the Congress, who had preferred to remain silent so far, have raised objection to the behaviour and moves of the party leaders.

Legislators M C Sudhakar and N H Shivashankar Reddy had criticised Union Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa. The next day, supports of Muniyappa had retaliated by organising a separate party meeting. Watching such clash, the taluk leaders of the Congress had joined the critics of the legislators and also demanded that the legislators be shunted from the party.

Now, the ZP members have decided to bring to light their take on the entire episode.

Responsibility

“The Congress legislators, Sudhakar and Reddy, are chiefly responsible for the election of C R Narasimhamurthy as the new president of the ZP. The legislators, who behaved like the party tribunal, insisted that S N Chinnappa be supported instead of Shaikh Maula.

Upset by such authoritative demands and wishing to teach the legislators a lesson, we decided to vote for Narasimhamurthy with support from the JD(S) and the CPM,” the ZP members explained, clarifying, “But we told Narasimhamurthy resigned from the BJP before electing him.”

The members also criticised other local party leaders for their comments in the district.
“Chadalapura Narayanaswamy, Yaluvahalli Ramesh and M Prakash might wish to call themselves leaders of the Congress, but they have no moral authority to comment on the developments of the Zilla Panchayat and the Congress,” said N Ashwatthappa, vice-president of the ZP.

‘Misplaced concern’

“Yaluvahalli Ramesh, in a recent press meet, pretended to show a lot of concern towards the Congress party and members, but his past as a politician as well as his moves at opportune moments is well known to the citizens of Chikkaballapur taluk,” said Ashwatthappa.

“Chadalapura Narayanaswamy trained under the Janata Party leader K B Pillappa, but attempted to defeat his mentor who wished to contest from Mulbagal for the Zilla Panchayat membership. M Prakash, who is the president of the City Municipal Council as a Congressman, had contacted JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, requesting for support as the number of Congress members was too low for him to win,” he added.

Ashwatthappa also demanded that Prakash resign from the Municipality immediately. “Also, he should not organise press conferences to please legislators Sudhakar and Reddy.”