Bengaluru, Jan 27: In a major snub handed out to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, top central leaders of Congress picked former Union minister and party veteran CK Jaffer Sharief’s grandson Abdul Rahman Sharief for next month’s bypoll to Hebbal Assembly constituency.
The party high command has rejected the nomination of Independent MLC Byrathi Suresh, a close confidant of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Mr. Jaffer Sharief had lobbied hard to get ticket for his grandson. Jubilant over his grandson getting ticket, Mr. Jaffer Sharief said:, “Now the party has to work collectively to grab the Hebbal seat from the BJP.”
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, sources said, strongly opposed giving ticket to an outsider — Mr. Suresh, who is not yet become a Congress member. Apparently, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, too had opposed naming Mr. Suresh as the party candidate. Senior leaders Oscar Fernandes and B.K. Hariprasad too had opposed the candidature of Mr. Suresh, sources said.
The Chief Minister’s morale to lead the election campaign would be dented as “his candidate” (Mr. Suresh) had been denied ticket, a senior leader said.
Sources said that the high command had questioned the State Congress adopting different rules in two constituencies — Hebbal and Bidar. While the State unit had recommended the name of Rahim Khan — who had faced a defeat in the 2013 Assembly election — for the byelection in Bidar, it had opposed giving ticket to another defeated candidate, Mr. Rahman Sharief, in Hebbal.
The Congress high command therefore decided to field “party loyalists” so as to send the right signals to the party cadre ahead of the zilla and taluk panchayat elections next month.
Mr. Rahman Sharief had lost to Jagadish Kumar of the BJP in the 2013 Assembly election by a margin of just 5,000 votes in Hebbal, while Mr. Khan was defeated by Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli in Bidar by a margin of 2,000 votes.
Ms. Gandhi has approved the candidature of Rahim Khan for Bidar and V. Rajashekhar Naik for Deodurg. Mr. Naik is the son of A. Venkatesh Naik, the then Deodurg MLA who died is a train accident in November last.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
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Jaffar Shariff took signature from various religious institution to lobby for his grand son. Still things were not in his favor. He used his ultimate trump card to convince the state and national Congress.
\If you don't give ticket we will fight election on SDPI ticket.\" Blackmailed worked, congrats Rehman."
Jaffar Shariff took signature from various religious institution to lobby for his grand son. Still things were not in his favor. He used his ultimate trump card to convince the state and national Congress.
\If you don't give ticket we will fight election on SDPI ticket.\" Blackmailed worked, congrats Rehman."
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