Koppal: After hobnobbing with the Congress for nearly two years, and raising a banner of revolt against party supremo, H.D. Deve Gowda and former CM H.D. Kumaraswamy, JD(S) MLA, Iqbal Ansari has dared the leadership again by fielding his supporters as independents in the ZP-TP elections in his Gangavati Assembly constituency.
Going a step further, he now openly calls himself a Congress MLA, and challenges the two leaders to expel him from the party. “I am a Congress MLA now.
I proudly assert this”, Mr Ansari declared, although he acknowledged in the same breath that the Congress too had “betrayed” him, going back on its promise to give his supporters tickets to contest the panchayat elections.
“I supported the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and in the recent council election and was assured of a reward for my supporters. But I was betrayed by local Congress leaders who denied my supporters tickets at the last moment,” he said.
Adding futher he said, his supporters would now contest six zilla panchayat and 16 taluk panchayat seats in the constituency as independents.
Responding to Mr Kumaraswamy’s statement asking legislators involved in anti-party activity to resign, he claimed he did not have the moral authority to give them such advice.
“People of Gangavati elected me as an MLA and I am working for their welfare. It is the (JDS) state president who must resign because he does not know how to keep his party legislators happy. He does not have the moral authority to ask for my resignation. Let him expel me from the party if he wants,” he challenged.
Meanwhile, in Raichur, Minister H.C. Mahadevappa said the Congress had no proposal to induct disgruntled JD(S) legislators into the party as of now.
