Kumaraswamy says son Nikhil will not contest Karnataka assembly polls
Mandya, Jul 26: JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said his son and party youth wing president Nikhil Kumaraswamy will not be contesting the assembly polls in Karnataka, which is due next year.
The former state chief minister said the 32-year-old actor-turned politician, who is the grandson of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, will work towards the party's victory.
"Who said Nikhil will contest? He has decided to work towards organising the party in about 30-40 constituencies. Nikhil will not contest assembly polls," Kumaraswamy said.
There were some speculations in the party circles that Kumaraswamy may shift to Ramanagara and give up his Channapatna seat to make way for Nikhil, while his wife Anita Kumaraswamy, who currently represents Ramanagara, may not contest the polls.
According to some party leaders, Nikhil is said to be more interested in fighting and winning the next Lok Sabha polls from Mandya.
Nikhil lost the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from the party bastion of Mandya to BJP-backed independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh, an actor-turned politician.
JD(S) had fought the previous Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the Congress, as both parties were then running a coalition government, with Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister.
The talk about Nikhil not contesting the polls has come as JD(S) often faces criticism for "dynasty politics", with it even being called a "family party", as at least eight members from party patriarch Deve Gowda's immediate family are into politics.
As it aims to independently form a government this time, the JD(S) has set a target of winning 123 out of 224 seats in the assembly polls.
Kumaraswamy had recently predicted the possibility of an early assembly election in Karnataka, saying it could be held in December this year.
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Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants: Mani Shankar Aiyar
Kolkata (PTI): Former career diplomat, ex-union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that deposed Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants.
Expressing happiness that Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri went to Dhaka last month and held discussions with the authorities there, Aiyar told PTI on the sidelines of the 16th Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival that the talks should be continuous and New Delhi needs to establish ministerial contacts with the interim government of Bangladesh.
About demands by Bangladesh to extradite Hasina, he said, "I hope we will never disagree that Sheikh Hasina has done a lot of good for us. I am glad she was given refuge. I think we should be her host as long as she wants, even if it is for all her life."
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her 16-year regime.
The Congress leader said that it is true that minority Hindus in Bangladesh are being attacked, but mostly it is because they are supporters of Hasina.
“They (reports about attacks on Hindus) are true but exaggerated because many of the conflicts are more about settlement of political differences," he said on Saturday.
Earlier during a question hour session, Aiyar said that Pakistanis are much like Indians, but only the accident of partition made them a different country.
“There exists much more difference in me as a Tamil and my wife as a Punjabi, than between her and a Pakistani Punjabi,” he said.
Taking a jibe at the Narendra Modi regime, the Congress leader claimed, “We have the courage to undertake surgical strike but this government does not have the courage to sit across the table with them."
Pakistan is a country which "spreads terror but it is also a victim of terror', Aiyar said.
"They (Pakistan) thought they could bring Taliban to power in Afghanistan, (but) today their single biggest threat is the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.
In a compliment to former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Aiyar said his single biggest achievement was to ensure that India talked to Pakistan on the back channel on what Gen Musharraf called the four-point agreement on Kashmir.
Singh also showed that it is possible to talk business with a military government, he said.
"It is suicidal for us to continue wearing Pakistan around our neck like the albatross. We should just talk to them as Manmohan Singh showed on the issue of Kashmir,” he said.
Aiyar took part in a discussion on his recent book where he touched on issues like his relation with the Gandhi family, his tryst with the Congress party, his stint in the days at Cambridge and his commentary on the present situation in the country.
