Referring to Congress leader B.K. Hariprasad, who triggered a controversy with his statement implying that he has the capacity to change Chief Ministers, Idiga community seer and head of Sri Narayana Guru Shaktipeetha of Chittapur Pranavananda Swamy has compared Mr. Hariprasad with the veteran Congressman and former Chief Minister late S. Bangarappa.
Both Mr. Hariprasad and Bangarappa belong to the Idiga community.
“The entire Idiga community should stand behind its political leaders cutting across political affiliations. Our community leader, B.K. Hariprasad, is not just a member of the Legislative Council but he is as tall a leader as the former Chief Minister late S. Bangarappa was. It is unfortunate that he is facing some severe attacks in political circles and we, as a community, should stand behind him,” the swamy said, at a community meeting in Kalaburagi on Wednesday.
“Idiga community leaders like late S. Bangarappa, late R.L. Jalappa and H.G. Ramulu faced many setbacks in their political careers. We, as a community, should see that such things didn’t happen to our leaders now. We need to firmly stand by them,” the seer said.
The seer held that Mr. Hariprasad is being made a victim of political conspiracies and urged the community members to raise their voice in favour of him.
“Mr. Hariprasad played a pivotal role in bringing the Congress to power in the State. He should have been given a Ministerial berth when Chief Minister Siddaramaiah took oath. The unfortunate thing is that he has been not given a berth in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet even during the expansion of the Cabinet later. The Congress high command should, at least now, understand his importance and correct such things,” the seer said.
The seer also announced that Idiga, Billava and Namadari communities will hold a rally in Bengaluru. And, a preparatory meeting will be held on September 9, he added.
“Representatives of the communities from Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu will participate in the meeting. It will be a show of community strength,” he said.
Community leaders Venkatesh Gundanur, Sadanand Perla, Venkatesh Kadechur, Suresh Guttedar, Kupendra Guttedar, Mahadev Guttedar and others were present in the meeting.
