Karnataka: MLA Ansari dares JD(S) leadership to act against him

BENGALURU: Former minister and Gangavati MLA Iqbal Ansari has dared the working president of JD(S) to initiate action against him. In reply to a show-cause notice served by JD(S) working president Mr Narayana Rao, Mr Ansari has charged that state unit president H. D. Kumaraswamy had ignored him and the interests of members of minority communities even when he occupied the office of Chief Minister.

“I have been working sincerely for the party. If I wanted to become a minister, I would not have quit the Congress and rejoined JD(S). I do not forget the fact that Mr Kumaraswamy and Mr Deve Gowda appointed me as minister. But, Mr Kumaraswamy gave me an insignificant portfolio. When I requested him to change the portfolio, he kept on giving me false assurances that he would do so. Even when I tried to organise minority community members in the party, Mr Kumaraswamy, as Chief Minister, was helping Congress and BJP members. I am silently organising the party in Koppal district now,” he said in his letter.

Mr Ansari, once a trusted lieutenant of Mr Kumaraswamy, drifted away long ago. When Congress-JD(S) coalition government came to power in 2004, Mr Kumaraswamy ensured that Mr Ansari became minister, much against wishes of then deputy chief minister Mr Siddaramaiah. When he lost the Assembly election in 2008, he was appointed working president.

However, he was unceremoniously removed from the post, forcing him to quit the party and join Congress. But he was brought back to the party fold during the last Assembly elections, but the Congress was voted to power in the state.