Anti-party remarks: Cong slaps notice on ex-MLAs

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Monday slapped a show-cause notice on senior leaders K B Koliwad and K N Rajanna for speaking against the party in public.

Koliwad, a former Assembly Speaker, had openly blamed former chief minister Siddaramaiah for “creating trouble” and had said that he was responsible for Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s recent weeping episode.

Veteran former legislator Rajanna had remarked that the Congress-JD(S) coalition was shortlived. He even threatened to rebel if the party decided to extend its alliance with the JD(S) to the Lok Sabha polls.

The statements caused much embarrassment to the party and airing disgruntlement publicly went against the party’s principles, KPCC general secretary V Y Ghorpade said, in separate showcause notices issued to Koliwad and Rajanna. The party has given Koliwad and Rajanna a week’s time to explain why disciplinary action should not be initiated against them.

The notice comes even as senior Congress leaders warned their colleagues not to make public comments on the Congress-JD(S) coalition or on Kumaraswamy’s
weeping episode.

Koliwad denied that he had the intention of embarrassing the party. “I may have aired my personal opinion that the party should not suffer damage because of one person.
I’m a Congressman by birth. I will respond to the notice as soon as I receive it,” he told reporters.

KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao chaired a meeting of the party’s Hassan unit and discussed the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Apparently, party workers demanded that the Hassan Lok Sabha seat be allotted to the Congress under the alliance. The seat is currently held by JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda. If not Hassan, party workers suggested that the Congress take the Mandya Lok Sabha seat, which was represented by C S Puttaraju of the JD(S), till he won the recent Assembly polls.

“Since nothing is finalised on the alliance with the JD(S) for the Lok Sabha elections, it is the party’s right to ask for the Hassan seat,” Hassan district Congress Committee president Javagal Manjunath told reporters.