After much dilly-dally Vishwanath finally exits Congress
- Vishwanath quits Congress after 40 years; says he took the decision after two troubled years
- His resignation letter states that he will remain grateful to the Congress and that he holds no grudge against the party
- Congress had distanced itself from Vishwanath following his anti-party activities
- Vishwanath rued that not a single Congress leader reached out to him
- He is all set to join the JD(S) shortly
FollowAfter much theatrics, Adagur H Vishwanath has finally bid adieu to the Congress. He submitted his resignation to KPCC president G Parameshwara in Bengaluru on Friday. As Vishwanath is an AICC member, his letter will be sent to the party high command for acceptance or rejection.
The Congress had distanced itself from Vishwanath, following his continued diatribes against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and the Central leadership, and it will come as a surprise if it does not accept his resignation. After S M Krishna and V Sreenivas Prasad, Vishwanath becomes the third senior Congressman to have exited the party. He has blamed Siddaramaiah for his exit.
Like Siddaramaiah, Vishwanath too belongs to the Kuruba community and hails from Mysuru. Though Vishwanath played an important role in bringing Siddaramaiah to the Congress, the duo however have not seen eye to eye in the last few years. Soon after coming to power, Siddaramaiah sidelined Vishwanath, which resulted in a bitter falling out. Vishwanath, who has been nursing a grouse for not being inducted into the cabinet, did not spare an opportunity to attack Siddaramaiah or his “authoritarian attitude”.
Notwithstanding his continued noise making and the embarrassment caused to the party, the Congress had served him with a notice in February. Cautioning him of disciplinary action, the party had gone to extra lengths to keep him out of the electioneering activity during the Nanjangud and Gundlupet by polls.
His letters to AICC president Sonia Gandhi and other Central leaders seeking intervention, remained unanswered. As a last ditch attempt, he wrote to the newly appointed Karnataka in charge and AICC general secretary, K C Venugopal. That too got him no sympathies. The Congress paid no heed even when he threatened to quit the party. Aside from maintaining that Vishwanath would remain in the party, the Congress determinedly maintained a stoic silence the last few months.
It was more than apparent that the Congress didn’t want anything to do with Vishwanath, which the former MP himself admitted on Friday. Stating that he felt like an orphan, Vishwanath rued that not a single Congress leader had bothered to ask him to stay back.
“Though I had been talking about quitting Congress for the last one and a half months, none of the senior leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge or Parameshwara even bothered to reach out to me,” he said.
Vishwanath dismissed Parameshwara’s claims that the latter had tried to coax him to stay back in the party. “He didn’t even make a phone call to me,” he said. He also rued that Venugopal had asked him to settle the matter with Siddaramaiah himself, given that both leaders are Kurubas.
Stating that he had never hankered after power or positions, Vishwanath reiterated that he was quitting only because of the unfair treatment meted out to him by Siddaramaiah. Likening Siddaramaiah to Mahabharata’s ‘Dushasana’, Vishwanath said that ‘Indira Congress’, ‘Devaraj Urs Congress’, ‘Sonia Congress’, and ‘Rahul Congress’ had ended and ‘Siddaramaiah Congress’ was reigning supreme.
In his resignation too, he has stated that it had become inevitable for him to quit the party after 40 years, as “outsiders” had occupied his home (Congress party). “My own family members are in no mood to listen to me. It’s become inevitable for me to quit the party, to save myself from further embarrassments.”
Further, likening the party to a maternal figure, he has said, “I feel like a son who is forced to leave his mother. I am not deserting my mother - I am not even upset with her. I am just straying away from her shadows. I can never criticise the Congress.”
Vishwanath is now all set to join the JD(S). Though he continues to maintain that he is undecided about his future, the JD(S) has announced that Vishwanath would join the regional party shortly. It has also said that he would contest the upcoming elections from Hunsur on a JD(S) ticket.
To accommodate Vishwanath, the JD(S) leadership has denied the Hunsur ticket to its own family member, Prajwal Revanna (H D Deve Gowda’s grandson), and kin of JD(S) MLA G T Deve Gowda, who were aspiring to contest from constituency.
