Bengaluru: Congress MLA, Anand Singh was injured and hospitalised on Sunday after an alleged fight with colleague J N Ganesh at the Eagleton resort where the party MLAs are being kept amid BJP’s alleged poaching attempt.
According to sources, Anand Singh and J N Ganesh, both from Ballari district, had a heated argument and came to blows late last night. Singh reportedly has a black eye and suffered blunt injuries, but was fine now. It should also be noted that Ganesh is among the disgruntled party MLAs. He was said to be in touch with other dissidents in the party.
This comes at a time when Karnataka is facing an ongoing political turmoil. Recently, the party issued notices to four of its legislators who skipped an important CLP meeting.
In its notices the party sought to know why action should not be taken against the MLAs under the anti-defection law for not attending the Friday’s Congress Legislature Party Meeting that was a show of strength against BJP’s alleged bid to dislodge the ruling coalition.
Meanwhile, B S Yeddyurappa, State BJP president, has urged Governor Vajubhai Vala and Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to seek a report on the incident. He said Siddaramaiah was answerable for the incident and demanded that police record Singh’s statement
However, Nizamabad MP Madhu Goud Yakshi assured that the fight had nothing to do with politics and that it was personal and related to some business issues between the two.
Taking a dig at the situation, BJP said it was unfortunate that the KPCC President was unable to stop the fight in Eagleton resort. They unfortunately can’t even blame BJP now.
Denying reports that a bottle was smashed on Singh’s head, D K Shivakumar claimed that all the Congress MLAs were united. It is all fake news.
Four MLAs who were issued notices for skipping the CLP meeting were Ramesh Jarkiholi, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli. In the notice to Jarkiholi, CLP leader Siddaramaiah sought a response from him for not attending the meeting also asked him to provide an explanation about media reports claiming that he was joining BJP.
In his letter, he asked Jarkiholi why he has not issued any statement so far, he said the latter’s conduct suggested that he may voluntarily quit membership of Indian National Congress. According to sources, at least eight party MLAs have committed themselves to BJP and this made the party to shift the legislators to the resort.