Upper House Polls Trigger Sparring and Sparks

Upper House Polls Trigger Sparring and Sparks

Bengaluru: The forthcoming elections to the Rajya Sabha and state legislative council have given rise to heated, but interesting, war of words.

On Monday, at a meeting of legislators meeting, chief minister Siddaramaiah is said to have cornered Mangaluru north MLA B A Mohiuddin for not dissuading his brother B M Farooq from filing his nomination as a JD(S) candidate from the state.

Siddaramaiah, Mohiuddin Bava, Farooq and  Moideen

The stake is high for the party because a senior leader, Oscar Fernandes, is being fielded as Congress candidate.

On his part, Mohiuddin has said that the CM did speak to him in the matter. But contrary to the widespread media reports, the CM did not ‘take him to task’. He has clarified it to the CM that Farooq is just his brother. Otherwise, there was no political or business connection.

Farooq being an independent individual, he had taken his decision. Mohiuddin said that his loyalty was to Congress and he would not vote for anyone else.

In the meanwhile, in an interesting development, JD(S) state president announced at a media meet in the Vidhana Soudha premises on Monday that the candidature had been suggested by former higher education minister from Mangaluru, B A Moideen.

Kumaraswamy said that Farooq and he had known each other for eight years. Moideen was once a minister in the J H Patel cabinet. Out of goodwill, Moideen had put forth the name of Farooq, he said.

As the news was flashed, Moideen issued a clarification from Mangaluru saying that he had no role in the selection of Farooq as the JD(S) candidate. He had been away from party politics for long. Hence when he was not in that party nor was he any office-bearer there was no question of his recommending anyone’s name.

The only connection he had, Moideen said, was that Farooq was related to him. If he had been selected as the candidate by JD(S), it was entirely that party’s decision.

He said that this clarification was necessitated because of rampant rumours going around that he had a hand in the selection.