Modi on Khadi calendar: No one can replace Mahatma, says minister

Bengaluru, Feb 10: After many twists and turns, veteran Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge is emerging as the frontrunner for the KPCC president’s post, party sources revealed.

Though the names of DK Shivakumar and MB Patil did the rounds sometime ago, the party high command could not decide on an apt candidate, and had to widen its horizon looking for a leader who can take all factions along, and they seem to have zeroed in on Kharge.

But the senior Dalit leader is also in the reckoning for the more important All-India Congress Committee president’s post after he successfully stitched up an alliance, despite all odds, between the Congress and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. He is understandably reluctant to take up the KPCC post. “The central leadership has given him some time to consider the KPCC offer,” the sources said.

The high command would rather go with Kharge as he is politically a far bigger force than Shivakumar and M B Patil and the party central leadership wants a safe pair of hands to handle the affairs of the state, the sources said. Also, senior leaders Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and M B Patil cannot raise a voice against Kharge if he is elected to the post, they said.

Kharge was the Pradesh Congress chief in 2008 when the BJP was in power under B S Yediyurappa. An old warhorse, Kharge is seen as an able administrator and taskmaster. He had won a record 11 elections on the trot before he was defeated in the Kalaburgi Parliamentary Constituency by his former protege Dr Umesh Jadhav in the last election.

Sources said that the high command will not consider Shivakumar for the top slot till he comes out clean in all the legal cases against him.

It is exactly two months since Dinesh Gundurao resigned as KPCC president after the party managed to win just two out of the 15 Assembly constituencies that went for by-elections. Siddarmaiah too resigned on the same day owning moral responsibility for the loss, but the party has decided to continue with him as the assembly opposition leader, while looking for a replacement for Gundurao. 

The high command sent senior central leaders  Madhusudhan Mistry and Bhakta Charan Das on December 20 to sort out the issue of KPCC president. Though they met the state leaders and held high-level meetings in Delhi, they could not decide on a candidate. Meanwhile, the central leadership has asked Gundurao to continue in the post, till a replacement is found.

‘Congress will protest against scrapping reservation’

Bengaluru: “RSS-BJP is against reservation and have been trying to scrap it for sometime now,’’ said senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday. He stated that the Congress would take up the issue for a determined agitation both inside and outside the parliament. He said they must file a petition against this. His reaction comes after the SC recently took a decision where the top court had maintained that reservation in promotions was not a fundamental right.

Bantwal, Karnataka, May 29: Vitla Police have registered a case against four persons, including a Bajrang Dal leader, on charges of assaulting a boy and forcing him to chant 'Jai Shree Ram', video of which had gone viral on social media.

Police said on Friday that the accused have been identified as Bajrang Dal leader Dinesh, a resident of Kanyana, and two 16-year-old youngsters from Kolnadu village and a 17-year-old boy from Kanyana village. The victim of the assault has been identified as the first PUC student of Kudtumugaru.

On April 21, at around 11 am, four accused waylaid the boy's bike and started abusing him. They then dragged the boy to Kadumath High School grounds and assaulted and posed life threat. Besides, they forced him to chant ''Jai Shree Ram,'' he stated in the complaint.

Mangaluru, May 9: An Indian expatriate worker from Karnataka’s coastal district of Dakshina Kannada died of in Dubai after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

The deceased has been identified as Yashwant, 37, hailing from Malali Kajila House in Tenkulipady village, on the outskirts of Mangaluru.

He was working as an air-conditioner mechanic in Dubai for the last two years.

As per sources, he suffered a heart attack. However, the exact cause of this death is yet to be known.