Hundreds of JD(S) workers to join Cong: Zameer

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Housing and Minorities Welfare Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan on Monday boasted that hundreds of JD(S) workers from Old Mysuru region would join Congress at a grand convention to be held at the Palace Grounds in Bengaluru in the near future.

He said the inductees would be mostly Muslim workers since they had been disillusioned with the JD(S)’ pre-poll Lok Sabha alliance with the BJP.

The minister said that the workers perceived the saffron party to be hostile to religious minorities because under the rein of Basavaraj Bommai, Muslims had been targeted with a virtual ban on the hijab in educational institutions, opposition to halal meat and the azaan, the Islamic call for prayer, apart from an attempted abolition of four per cent reservation for Muslims under the 2B sub-category as a part of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) category.

“Dissatisfied over BJPJanata Dal (Secular) ties, hundreds of minority leaders from the JD(S) in Ramanagara, Channapatna, Hassan, Mandya, and other districts and taluks are in touch and they will be inducted into the party in the mega convention to be held in Palace Grounds in Bengaluru,” Zameer said.

He made the comments at the Karnataka Pradesh Cong ress Committee (KPCC) office in Bengaluru on Monday when they inducted former JD(S) MLA MC Ashwath and others into the party.

Zameer also slammed JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda and other leaders from the party, asking how they could stomach an alliance with the BJP