'Cong's stand to support Darshan Puttannaiah not acceptable'

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's decision to extend support to Swaraj India party candidate and late MLA K S Puttannaiah's son Darshan, contesting from Melkote, would be the final nail in the party's coffin in the Assembly constituency, opined Dr H N Ravindra, president of the Karnataka chapter of Indian Medical Association.

Expressing his opinion on the social media, Dr Ravindra, a native of the taluk and also an aspirant of Congress ticket, said that he has great respect for the late farmer leader K S Puttannaiah. "The parties should have honoured him by not fielding any candidate and electing him unopposed when he was alive. Now, we are trying to dishonour him posthumously as Puttannaiah himself would not have accepted the offer if he was alive."

"Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and KPCC president G Parameshwara had directed me to enter the fray from Melkote constituency, around two years ago. I had explained to them that officials cooperation and money is required to organise the party. I told them that I am ready to contest if all that is taken care of by the party. But, subconsciously, I was not happy contesting against Puttannaiah. Later, upset over the debacle in the MLC elections from the graduates constituency, I limited myself to my profession and professional organisation," he said.

"Now, the Congress is insulting more than 25,000 Congress party workers under Melkote constituency, by announcing that the party will support Puttannaiah's son. I was very close to Puttannaiah. Even he wouldn't have accepted this. It is okay if Darshan is announced as the Congress candidate. If the party supports him and the party he represents, principally, I am against it," Dr Ravindra explains.

In the 2013 polls also, the Congress candidate L D Ravi, a KPCC member, was made a scapegoat as the Congress indirectly supported Puttanniah. Ravi was left gaping helplessly while the Congress councillors and other leaders of the party were campaigning along with Puttannaiah, says a Congress leader, who wants to remain anonymous.