Despite former MLA and discredited Congress leader R Roshan Baig going head over heels in supporting the BJP in the upcoming bypoll elections in Shivajinagar, the saffron party continues to humiliate and snub him.
In the latest development, Baig, who is pulling all strings to defeat Congress in his former constituency, is said to have been instructed by BJP to stay away from the party and its leaders till the bypolls conclude, Republic has reported.
Baig and his son Ruman, who had publicly claimed they would be joining BJP, along with the other disqualified legislators, had been snubbed by the BJP who chose to publicly humiliate him by saying he is unwanted in the party.
“We don’t want Roshan Baig at any cost,” BJP leader and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister KS Eshwarappa had said.
BJP, which took his support to bring down the coalition government of Congress and JD(S), later discarded him. However, the party continues to take his support to destabilize Congress’ efforts in Shivajinagar.
In Shivajinagar, two Congress corporators — MK Gunashekhar (Jayamahal) and Nethravathi Krishnegowda (Ramaswamypalya), were expelled on Wednesday from Congress, after they were found supporting BJP candidate M Saravana, at the behest of Baig.
Baig, a seven-time legislator from Bengaluru’s Shivajinagar constituency is in the middle of a controversy over his alleged links with IMA scam accused Mohammed Mansoor Khan.
After Khan went absconding, an audio clip purportedly by Khan surfaced on social media, in which he blamed Baig for extorting hundreds of crores for him, because of which his company had suffered losses.
Baig, along with 16 other MLAs, were disqualified by then-Speaker KR Ramesh for rebelling against then Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy and missing the trust vote. In their absence, the Congress-JD(S) government failed to prove the majority in the assembly and subsequently their disqualification brought the assembly numbers down, allowing the BS Yediyurappa-led BJP to comfortably stake a claim at power with just 105 seats and support from an independent.
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Shaik Zakeer Hussain is the Founder and Editor of The Cognate.
