BENGALURU: Following minority leader and MLC C M Ibrahim’s decision to quit the Congress, AICC president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday appointed another minority leader and former minister U T Khader as the deputy leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in the Assembly, in an attempt to strike a balance between caste and community representations ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls.
Last week, Sonia had appointed former minister M B Patil, a Lingayat leader, as the chairman of the KPCC campaign committee. Khader will be deputy to the Leader of Opposition and CLP leader Siddaramaiah. The move comes after Ibrahim announced his decision to quit the party, disgruntled for being denied the position of the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council. Apparently, the appointment has conciliated the Muslim leadership which was being allegedly ignored.
Ahead of the legislature session slated to start from February 14, the backward classes leader and man Friday of Sonia, B K Hariprasad, has been appointed the Leader of Opposition in the Council. Prakash Rathod, an SC Lambani community leader, was appointed chief whip.
Already, Vokkaliga leader D K Shivakumar has been leading the KPCC as its president with Eshwar Khandre, a Lingayat, Dhruvanarayana, SC right community, Sathish Jarkiholi, an ST Nayaka leader and Ramalinga Reddy, a prominent Reddy Vokkaliga leader of Bengaluru city, as the working presidents. Another working president would be appointed soon to give representation to the SC left community which the party had lacked, a source told TNIE.
Meanwhile, a group of Muslim religious heads held a meeting at a community hall on Nandidurga Road in Bengaluru on Sunday and warned that the community may have to teach the Congress a lesson for the raw deal.
“The Leader of the Opposition post in the Council should have been given to a Muslim community leader. If the party continues to treat us as a mere vote bank, we will have to look for an alternative party like in West Bengal and Bihar,” said Mufti Iftikhar Ahmad Qasmi, Karnataka president of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.