Unwilling to go down without a fight, the Congress is considering fielding Naseer Ahmed as its candidate for the Legislative Council chairperson’s election scheduled to be held on February 9.
“This has been discussed and the opinion is that we should field a candidate,” a top party leader said.
The Congress is said to be keen on making it a contest by not allowing the new chairperson to be elected unopposed, which has been the practice in the Upper House.
The election is scheduled on February 9 for the chairperson’s post that was vacated by Congressman K Prathapchandra Shetty, who resigned to preempt a no-confidence motion against him. Shetty was elected in 2018 when the Congress and the JD (S) were in a coalition.
Now, however, the JD(S) has joined hands with the BJP. According to their pact, the BJP will support senior JD(S) MLC Basavaraj Horatti’s election as the chairperson. In exchange, the JD(S) ensured that the BJP’s M K Pranesh became the deputy chairperson.
Numerically, the Congress is unlikely to win: The BJP-JD(S) combine has 44 MLCs against the Congress’ 28 in the 75-member House.
Apparently, the Congress leadership wants to field Ahmed, a former minister, to “expose” the JD(S).
“If the JD(S) allows a Muslim minority candidate to get defeated, it will expose them. That’s what we want,” the leader quote earlier said.
Over a week ago, the Congress attempted a similar move to "expose" the JD(S), when it fielded senior leader K C Kondaiah as its candidate against Pranesh, who managed to win comfortably.