Entire Congress Party in Karnataka stands by Gandhi family: state leaders
Bengaluru: Amid talks of having a "full time" leadership in Congress that is active in the field and "visible", leaders of the party's Karnataka unit on Sunday threw their weight behind the Gandhi family.
The Party's state unit Chief D K Shivakumar said the entire Congress party in Karnataka stands by the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and the Gandhi family.
"Mrs. Gandhi has led the Congress during times of crisis and saved our party.
Anything that has to be discussed must be done so in the party forum and not in the media," he tweeted. Leader of the Opposition in the assembly and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah termed the development as "unfortunate".
"It is unfortunate that the leadership of Gandhi family is being questioned by a few.
In these difficult times of undeclared emergency & attack on democracy by @BJP4India, we should collectively strive to strengthen @INCIndia & not weaken it," the former Chief Minister tweeted.
The tweets by Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar came amid reports that 23 Congress leaders have written to party chief Sonia Gandhi on the leadership issue.
Having a "full time" leadership that is active in the field and "visible" in party offices, dissolution of powers to state units and revamping the CWC in line with the party constitution are some of the far-reaching suggestions made by 23 senior Congress leaders in a letter to Sonia Gandhi to revive the organisation, sources said on Sunday.
They were also critical of the way the Congress Working Committee, the party's apex decision-making body, was being constituted and was functioning.
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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.
