HC allows Shanth Kumar’s candidacy for KSCA president’s post, Prasad to have competition
Bengaluru(PTI): KN Shanth Kumar on Saturday expressed relief after the High Court declared his nomination papers for the post of Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) valid, setting aside an earlier decision of the Electoral Officer.
The Karnataka High Court order means that former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad will now have competition for the KSCA president’s post during the elections scheduled on December 7.
The HC also asked the KSCA Electoral Officer to publish the list of candidates for the post of president.
While setting aside EO’s order dated November 24, Justice Suraj Govindaraj said the remaining electoral process should be conducted as per the calendar earlier decided by the High Court.
“There's only one way you can view it. It's a welcome development. I'm very relieved that the court has seen that I'm eligible. And now we're working towards building for the election,” Shanth Kumar, whose nomination was earlier rejected on technical grounds, told PTI.
So, does he need to file a fresh nomination?
“From what I can understand, the (existing) nomination holds because what the court has done is…it has quashed the order of the electoral officer. The electoral officer had rejected my nomination. And that is the (EO’s) order with which we went to the court, appealing to quash it.
“So the court has set aside the electoral officer's order of rejecting my application. Therefore, the nomination stands,” Shanth Kumar, Director of The Printers (Mysore) Private Ltd, said.
Apart from Prasad and Shanth Kumar, other prominent contestants are: former cricketers Sujith Somasundar (Vice-president, Secretary) and Avinash Vaidya (Joint Secretary and Managing Committee member).
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
