2023 K'taka assembly polls will be my last, but will continue in politics: Siddaramaiah
Mysuru, Mar 25 : Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday said the 2023 assembly election in Karnataka will be his last, but will continue to remain in politics.
The Leader of Opposition in the state assembly said he is yet to decide on the constituency from where he will contest the next election, and will abide by the party's decision regarding the Congress' chief ministerial face for the polls.
"I will remain in politics, but electoral politics - most likely the next assembly election will be the last that I will be contesting," Siddaramaiah told reporters at his native village Siddaramanahundi here.
Responding to a question on which constituency he will be contesting from, he said there is still one more year for the assembly elections, and is yet to take a call in this regard.
"Party workers and well-wishers from Varuna, Hunsur, Chamarajpet, Badami, Kolar, Hebbal, Koppal and Chamundeshwari are asking me to contest from their constituencies. I'm yet to decide from where (to fight the polls)," he added.
There have been speculation within the party for some time now that the former chief minister, who currently represents Badami in north Karnataka, may return to his home turf of the old Mysuru region or somewhere in Bengaluru for the next assembly election.
His loyalist and Chamarajpet legislator B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, who is among those projecting him as the CM face for the next assembly polls, that caused some differences within the party, has even offered to vacate the constituency for the Congress Legislature Party leader.
Siddaramaiah has already said he will not contest again from Chamundeshwari assembly constituency in Mysuru, where he had tasted defeat during the 2018 assembly polls.
To a question on contesting from Chamundeshwari constituency, he said, "I was defeated in the last election in the same constituency where I had got my political rebirth. But it doesn't mean that I will forget the people of Chamundeshwari. They had made me win five times and gave me political strength to this level."
Siddaramaiah, the then sitting chief minister, had lost in Chamundeshwari in 2018 to JD(S) G T Deve Gowda by a margin of over 36,042 votes.
He, however, won Badami, the other constituency from where he had contested, defeating BJP's B Sriramulu by a margin of just 1,696 votes.
Making his debut in the Assembly in 1983, Siddaramaiah had got elected from Chamundeshwari on a Lok Dal Party ticket. He has won five times from this constituency and tasted defeat thrice.
After neighbouring Varuna became a constituency in 2008 following delimitation, Siddaramaiah represented it till he vacated the seat for his son Dr Yatindra (MLA) in the 2018 assembly polls and went back to his old constituency of Chamundeshwari.
Ahead of the May 2018 assembly polls, Siddaramaiah had said it would "most likely" be his last election.
Earlier, during the 2013 assembly polls too, he had said that it was his last election and went on to become chief minister after the polls.
Asked whether he will ask for the chief ministerial face of the party to be announced before the 2023 election, as was done in Punjab, Siddaramaiah said, "I will not ask for such things. I will go by the decision of the Congress high command."
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Questioning religious practices will break religion, civilisation: SC in Dawoodi Bohras case
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Thursday remarked that if individuals start questioning certain religious practices or matters of religion before a constitutional court then there will be hundreds of petitions questioning different rituals, leading to the breaking of religions and the civilisation.
The nine-judge Constitution bench is hearing petitions related to discrimination against women at religious places, including the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, and on the ambit and scope of the religious freedom practised by multiple faiths, including Dawoodi Bohras.
The bench comprises Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices B V Nagarathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi.
The Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community filed a PIL in 1986 seeking the setting aside of a 1962 judgment, which had struck down the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act, 1949 -- this law made excommunication of any community member illegal.
The 1962 Constitution bench judgment said, "It is evident from the religious faith and tenets of the Dawoodi Bohra community that the exercise of the power of excommunication by its religious head on religious grounds formed part of the management of its affairs in matters of religion and the 1949 Act in making even such excommunication invalid, infringed the right of the community under Article 26(b) of the Constitution."
Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, representing a group of reformist Dawoodi Bohras, submitted that a practice which is conducted in response to secular and social actions of an individual cannot be the subject of Constitutional protection under Article 25 of the Constitution and consequently cannot be a ‘matter of religion’ under Article 26 of the Constitution.
Ramachandran told the court that a practice which may have a religious aspect but also significantly and adversely impacts fundamental rights is not immune to restriction under Article 25 of the Constitution or Article 26 of the Constitution.
Responding to the submission, Justice Nagarathna said that if everybody starts questioning certain religious practices or matters of religion before a constitutional court, then "what happens to this civilisation where religion is so intimately connected with the Indian society".
"There will be hundreds of petitions questioning this right that right, opening of the temple, and the closure of the temple. We are conscious of this," she said.
Adding to the response, Justice Sundresh said, "Every religion will break and every constitutional court will have to be closed.
"If the dispute between two entities are allowed then everybody will question everything. In your case there may be a civil wrong committed to you but in another case, another member will say I don't agree. It is regressive. To what extent can we go in a country like ours which is progressive and on the move is the question," he said.
Justice Nagarathna went on that what sets apart India from any other region is that "we are a civilisation" despite having so many pluralities and diversities?
Asserting that diversity is the country's strength, she added, "One of the constants in our Indian society is the relationship of human beings -- man, woman and child -- with the religion."
"Now, how a religious practice or a matter of religion is questioned, where it is questioned, whether it can be questioned, whether it has to be a question within a denomination for a reform or whether the state will have to do or you want the court to adjudicate upon all these aspects. This is troubling us.
"What we lay down, is for a civilisation that is India. India must progress despite all its economy, everything there is a constant in us. We can’t break that constant. That is what is troubling us ," she said.
Ramachandran replied that India is a civilisation under the Constitution and therefore nothing which goes against the grain of constitution can be continued in a civilised society.
He said that's where court's task come in and "it can't throw hands" and say there will be so many petitions.
