Bengaluru: In a move to strike a balance between caste and community representations ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Sonia Gandhi has appointed Minority Leader and Former Minister U. T. Khader as the Deputy Leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in the Assembly on Sunday January 30.
Sonia appointed Former Minister and Lingayat leader M. B. Patil as the Chairman of the KPCC campaign committee last week.
Khader will serve as the Deputy to Siddaramaiah, the Leader of the Opposition and the CLP’s leader. The move comes after Ibrahim announced his resignation from the party, citing his dissatisfaction with being refused the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council. The appointment seemed to have conciliated the Muslim leadership, which had been supposedly ignored.
B. K. Hariprasad, a backward classes leader has been appointed Leader of Opposition in the Council on Friday, ahead of the legislature session, which begins on February 14. Prakash Rathod, a leader in the SC Lambani community, was appointed Chief Whip.
D. K. Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga leader, has been serving as President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), with Eshwar Khandre, a Lingayat, Dhruvanarayana, SC right community, Sathish Jarkiholi, an ST Nayaka leader, and Ramalinga Reddy, a prominent Reddy Vokkaliga leader of Bengaluru City, working as working presidents.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, a group of Muslim religious leaders convened a meeting at a community centre on Nandidurga Road in Bengaluru, warning that the community may have to teach the Congress a lesson for the unfair treatment they have received.
