Qamarul Islam dies, Congress loses its North Karnataka strongman

Kalaburagi: Former Congress Minister and prominent Muslim leader, Qamarul  Islam, passed away following a brief illness in Bengaluru on Monday. He was 69.

Mr Islam was admitted to hospital 11 days ago for cellulitis of the leg and poor cardiac function. Suffering from hypertension and diabetes, he  was also under treatment for Myasthenia Gravis, a neuro-muscular disorder. He died of cardiogenic shock and multi- organ failure in the hospital at noon on Monday, according to his doctors.

As a mark of respect, the KPCC cancelled all its scheduled programmes for the day and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president, Dr G. Parameshwar, its working president, Dinesh Gundurao, Water Resources Minister, M.B.Patil, state BJP chief B.S. Yeddyurappa and other leaders of the state offered  condolences to his family.

The seniormost Muslim leader from Hyderabad-Karnataka, he represented Kalaburgi six times in the state assembly.  Qamar Sab, as he was fondly called by his supporters, began taking an interest in politics as a student of the PDA Engineering College in Kalaburagi and became the first Muslim president of its students’ union. His political career ,however, took off in the seventies as a leader of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in Kalaburagi. He went on to win the assembly polls in 1978, but lost the following elections  in 1983 and 1985  to veteran Labour leader, S K Kantha, who became the Labour Minister in the Hegde government.

But he made a comeback in 1989 , defeating  Mr Kantha in the Assembly elections that year and in the early nineties joined the Indian National League and then later, the Congress. Although he won from Gulbarga in 1994 to enter the Assembly again, he quit two years later to join the  Janata Dal briefly and enter the Lok Sabha on its ticket. But he resigned as MP to contest the assembly polls and joined S.M. Krishna cabinet as Housing Minister.

Although he was part of the Siddaramaiah government too, he was dropped from the Cabinet in June 2016  and squarely blamed senior Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, for his demotion.  He was, however, appointed  AICC secretary in charge of Kerala a few months ago.

Having served as the first chairman of the Hyderabad-Karnataka Regional Development Board when it was constituted in 2014, he also had stints as chairman of the Karnataka Housing Board, Karnataka Minority Comm ission and Karnataka Slum Clearance Board.