Mangaluru: With allegations and counter allegations being exchanged between two factions in the district Congress over the expulsion of Hemanath Shetty, the president of the Puttur Block congress, highly placed sources within the district Congress told Newskarnataka.com, that the latter leader hailing from Puttur, enjoyed the secret backing of the district-in-charge minister, Bellipady Ramanath Rai in all political and personal maneuvers.
The fallout of the decision to replace the Puttur Block Congress, spurred a spate of resignations which continued on Monday Feb 2 with as many as eight members of the municipal council and presidents of various units of the Puttur Taluk Congress tendering their resignations to mark their dissent to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).
The recent chain of events that have unfolded in the district unit of the Congress, categorically suggest that the rift between the well known teams of DK congress is getting wider.
Mr. Rai threatened to resign
Making a startling revelation, a senior congress worker from the district, under the condition of anonymity, said that, had Mr. Rai not supported Mr. Shetty six months ago, when the KPCC passed an order to make a fresh appointment for the block president, Hemanath Shetty would not have been able to enjoy his stint, till the day he floated Bharatiya Hindu Parishat (BHP).
The senior congress worker argued that the district-in-charge minister had threatened KPCC with his own resignation and demanded that the decision be revoked, thus ensuring that the decision was withheld. “Rai, though he disagreed with the formation of the BHP, behind closed doors, supported the new venture and he is infamous in Congress for his back channel activities.”
The source further said, that the heat of the decade long political rivalry between the former union minister Janardhan Poojary and Ramanath Rai has not subsided, and Mr. Rai was miffed by the recent political developments in Puttur, carried out by MLA Shankuntala Shetty who has her roots in the Sangh Parivar. The MLA from Puttur constituency, speaking to Newskarnataka.com hinted that her relationship with the state minister is bleak and expressed the view, that she played no political card in the appointment of new block president, Fazal Raheem.
“I have no role”
Mrs. Shetty further remarked that “the former block Congress president appears to have lost his mental health and this was evident from his baseless allegations and disparaging statements against me and a veteran Congress leader”. She rubbished the allegations leveled by Hemanath that said she was pivotal in toppling his position. “I received a letter from the KPCC on September 18, 2014 to suggest a new name for block Congress president. The name of Fazal Raheem was suggested by Ramanath Rai and Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake four years back for the post and I did the same during that discourse”.
She questioned how could I be a party to the choice made by the duo of cabinet ministers of the state long back? She added that in the month of September last year, she was on a Europe tour and received the letter after she returned to her constituency. “After I sent the name of Raheem, I received the orders from the KPCC to appoint him as a president, but the decision was stayed due to some political reasons,” she said. The former BJP leader chided Hemanath Shetty and claimed BHP was a flop show, with the newly formed organization garnering poor response from the people of the vicinity.
‘Hindutva strategy’
The Congress party was currently going through a difficult phase witnessing repeated defeats due to want of strategies, said the ousted Puttur Block Congress president Hemanath Shetty. The Congress party was perceived as an anti-Hindu party due to its disproportionate wooing of minority sects. Shetty’s concept of building a Hindu unit which owes allegiance to the Congress, in his own words, was a “incorporation of a new strategy to render a face-lift for the party.”
To save the party from facing an acute rout in the future discourse of electoral battle, he desired that a new strategy should be adopted. However he stated that founding of BHP has nothing to do with his removal from the post. He contended that the root level Congress cadre was unhappy with the style of functioning of the Puttur MLA. “As I voiced the collective mood of the cadre, the MLA lobbied to bring me down sending the name of Fazal Raheem.”, he alleged.
When Fazal Raheem was contacted, he said, reiterating the words of Shakuntala, that his name was suggested four years back, in 2010 for the post by Rai and Sorake. He expressed the confidence, that he would be able to take party workers disappointed at the ouster of Hemanath Shetty, into confidence and successfully fulfill his responsibility as the president of the Puttur Block Congress. He argued that he was unaware why his promotion as a president was stalled by the KPCC six months earlier.
