Exclusive: Karnataka Congress chief plans to bring brother DK Suresh to state politics via RR Nagar bypoll
With the Election Commission deciding not to hold bypolls for two seats, RR Nagar and Maski due to alleged discrepancies in 2018 Assembly elections, now that the government is in place and two seats still vacant and by-elections expected, it is said DK Shivakumar is reportedly planning to filed his brother DK Suresh from RR Nagar to bring him into state politics
FollowBengaluru: After seeing his loyalty towards him by guarding Gujarat MLAs at the Eagleton Resort to ensure Ahmed Patel gets the Rajya Sabha seat, and in need of a loyal person to help him bolster the party, the newly appointed Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar is planning to make his brother DK Suresh contest from Bengaluru’s RR Nagar Assembly seat and enter state politics.
As many in the party may not be loyal to him and still refuse to see eye-to-eye, Shivakumar, a master strategist in his own way, has worked out this plan.
However, when asked about the same, Suresh who is a Member of Parliament from Bengaluru Rural, said, “I am not planning to contest bypolls. We will come up with a candidate and will surprise everyone.”
Suresh also mentioned that he will help his brother in building a cadre-based party.
As many leaders left the Congress accusing one-upmanship against former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and now a possibility of party trying to bring back the original leaders who jumped the ship, Suresh, said, “Anyone is free to join the party or come back to its fold as long as they like the ideology.”
Suresh also pitched for more digital media reach to every gram panchayat level and strengthening the social media and IT wing of the party.
Suresh is the lone Congress MP from Karnataka and realising not much role at Centre as of now, Shivakumar has decided to bring him to state politics.
A source said, the brothers have decided to approach former leaders to return to the Congress and strengthen it.
“The brothers have buried the differences with other leaders and now the only focus is to listen to every voter, respect the party workers, acknowledge their presence. And their main aim is to make the party strong from gram panchayat and municipal corporations level itself,” said the source.
BJP to go with Munirathna Naidu
Meanwhile, the BJP is most likely to field RR Nagar leader and former MLA Munirathna Naidu as he holds clout with more number of corporators. The biggest challenge he faces is, he being a Balija community leader (Naidu), will be testing his luck against a Vokkaliga leader in the Assembly segment which is dominated by Vokkaligas.
Election result to RR Nagar was challenged as opponent Tulasi Muniraj Gowda accused him (Munirathna) of creating fake voters ID and the Election Commission found thousands of such cards from an apartment owned by Munirathna. Based on this, the EC termed the result null and void.
Now efforts are being made to convince Gowda to make things clear for Munirathna after he joined the BJP last year.
