Ramesh Katti, former MP and BJP leader, has denied as baseless rumours, reports of him joining the Congress before the Lok Sabha polls.
He told reporters in Belagavi on Monday, that he was not interested in leaving the BJP as his family was active in it for decades. He also said no one from the Congress had contacted him.
He was responding to a statement by Satish Jarkiholi, minister and KPCC working president that Ramesh Katti was welcome to join the Congress if he believed in its ideology and accepted its principles. While speaking to reporters in Chikkodi on Sunday, Satish Jarkiholi said that Congress had not approached Ramesh Katti, but the leader was welcome to join the party.
“We are focusing on winning the two seats in Belagavi district. But then, we will not approach Ramesh Katti or any other leader for this purpose,’‘ he said.
He also said that the party candidates for Belagavi and Chikkodi would be decided after discussing with leaders at the state and district level. ``We are holding discussions with party legislators and former legislators in the two Parliamentary seats,’‘ he said. He said the candidature of his daughter and youth Congress leader Priyanka Jarkiholi was being considered, though nothing was finalised yet.
However, the rumours of Ramesh Katti quitting the BJP are strong. He is supposed to be upset after his claim for the Chikkodi ticket was not considered by the BJP leadership, that re-nominated MP Anna Saheb Jolle. BJP sources say that he was overlooked even though he had the support of senior leader B S Yediyurappa. An internal survey among voters also made Ramesh Katti’s claim stronger than Mr Jolle as Mr Katti got three percent votes more than Mr Jolle, said a party election committee member.
Ramesh Katti, the younger brother of former minister Umesh Katti, is other wise quite occupied in the cooperative sector. The 60 year old leader is the chairman of the Belagavi district central cooperative bank, one of the largest such institutions in the state with a working capital of over Rs 7,300 crore. He heads or is involved with a few more cooperative institutions like sugar factories, cooperative societies and the Hukkeri rural electric cooperative society, that supplies power to Hukkeri taluk. He was instrumental in Belagavi DCC bank setting up an oxygen generating unit at the cost of Rs 2.5 crore during the COVID epidemic.
Ramesh Katti is said to be friends with leaders across the political spectrum like Lakshman Savadi of the Congress and Prabhakar Kore of the BJP.
