'Muslim Candidate For CM If Voted To Majority' Announces Karnataka JD(S) Leader, Former CM H D Kumaraswamy

Minority voters are being wooed by all opposition parties this election season in Karnataka.

The latest to go one step ahead of others is Janata Dal-Secular (JD(S)) legislative party leader and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy who said his party will be open to have a Muslim chief ministerial candidate, if they are voted to power with a majority.

Kumaraswamy, who is leading the party’s Pancharatna yatra in the state for the last one week, spoke about this in Kolar, as he addressed the media on Tuesday (22 November).

‘If JD(S) comes to power independently in the coming election, there is an opportunity to make a member of the muslim community our chief minister,’ said Kumaraswamy, as reported.

‘If Kumaraswamy goes to Delhi, CM Ibrahim has said he himself may become the chief minister. A chance to even have such discussion is only possible in our party,’ he added.

‘Muslims are our own people. They are citizens of Karnataka, they are Kannadigas too. And this is not about giving a person an opportunity but addressing the issues of that community,’ said Kumaraswamy.

Speaking of two Dalit leaders Govinda Karjol and Dr G Parameshwar from BJP and Congress respectively, he said ‘both were appointed DCM but neither got any opportunity to exercise administrative power’.

Incidentally, Kolar, from where JD(S) has launched its yatra on 19 November, has been in the news as one of the seats from where Congress legislative party leader and former CM Siddharamaiah may contest the election.

And it is primarily his ‘AHINDA’ (acronym for Alpasankhyataru or minorities, Hindulidavaru or backward classes, and Dalitaru or Dalits) vote bank that Kumaraswamy has directly targetted. As per the 2011 census, 46.51 per cent of Kolar’s population is Muslim.

The last time around in 2018 too, Kumaraswamy had tried winning Muslim votes by joining hands with minority leader and All India Majlis e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

Owaisi too had announced that his party would field no candidates in the elections in the state, but instead support the JD(S) for a 'non-Congress and non-BJP government in Karnataka'.

This season though, there seems to be no such forged friendship as yet. Because the AIMIM led the Tipu jayanti celebrations in Hubballi that brought the issue to the fore yet again, while JD(S) state president CM Ibrahim called any such celebration ‘un-islamic’.