BENGALURU: The Congress high command on Saturday declared KV Gowtham as its candidate for the Kolar Lok Sabha constituency, resolving a month-long imbroglio.
With this, the efforts of Food and Civil Supplies minister KH Muniyappa to get the ticket for his son-in-law Chikkapeddanna has come to an end. Muniyappa’s unrelenting stand had led to a flash point when five legislators, including Higher Education Minister Dr MC Sudhakar, led by former Assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, had rushed to Vidhana Soudha a few days ago, threatening to resign if Chikkapeddanna is given the ticket. They had insisted that an SC right candidate should be selected.
But the party has opted for a middle ground by not ceding to pressures from both sides and choosing Gowtham, who hails from the SC left community. If the party had not done this, Muniyappa, who belongs to the same community, would have made it an issue, accusing the party of letting down the community, as it has given three tickets to SC right candidates out of the five Lok Sabha seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste category.
“I welcome the party’s decision and will work for the victory of the candidates, not only in Kolar and Chikkaballapur, but all the 28 LS constituencies. AICC general secretaries KC Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala spoke to me in this regard,” Muniyappa said at the Kempegowda International airport on Saturday.
By then, he had met AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge in New Delhi and KC Venugopal in Thiruvananthapuram making a last-ditch effort to get the ticket for Chikkapeddanna, but in vain, party sources said.
Congress, late on Friday evening, announced candidates for Chikkaballapur, Chamarajanagar and Ballari seats, leaving out Kolar.
Gowtham (48), president of the Bengaluru Central District Congress Committee, claimed that he never expected the party ticket. But the feud between Muniyappa and Ramesh Kumar came as a blessing for him.
“Whatever may be the differences between the leaders at an individual level, they have no issues when it comes to my candidature. Muniyappa is my ‘guru’ as I worked with him for over 25 years. I start my campaign after taking his blessings and taking others along,” Gowtham, an engineering (civil) graduate from RV College, told reporters.
“His father KC Vijaykumar was Bengaluru Mayor in 1991 and was close to both Kharge and former CM SM Krishna. Gowtham is in good terms with Ramesh Kumar too and this will help him, a leader said. The onus is now on the Ramesh Kumar faction to get Gowtham elected, as Muniyappa is unlikely to give his full support,” he added.
“There is no scope for factionalism in the party as I have spoken to Muniyappa and his daughter Roopakala Shashidar, who is KGF MLA. I am confident that no one will cross the Laksman Rekha,” Deputy Chief Minister and KPCC president D K Shivakumar said.
Surjewala praises Muniyappa for sacrifice
In an apparent move to pacify a sulking Muniyappa, a seven-time Lok Sabha member from Kolar, but lost the seat only in 2019, Surjewala praised him for his sacrifice in the interest of winning the Kolar seat.