Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Dec 11: District level leaders of Congress, who have not taken kindly of the statement of Harikrishna Bantwal, who is angry at the denial of Congress ticket for council election, that Congress was not built by Oscar Fernandes alone, have repulsed the attack aimed at this Rajya Sabha member.

In a statement, district Congress leaders, B Narasimhamurty, Dinesh Putran, Harish Kini, Diwakar Kunder, Murali Shetty and Ashok Kodavoor asked Harikrishna to clarify as to when and where had Oscar claimed to have built the party on his own. "When the municipality here was the strong fortress of Jan Sangh, Oscar Fernandes had resigned from his job to contest the election. He has never claimed credit for building the party. He has total faith in the tenets and policies of the party, and has always got involved with building the party by mingling freely with all levels of party workers. When party workers brought pressure on him to ensure that Vijay Kumar Shetty gets the party ticket from Suratkal constituency in 1994-95, he recommended Shetty's name. When the central election committee was wavering about issuing party ticket to Shetty, he offered to resign from his parliament seat. This shows his concern for party workers," they elaborated.

The leaders said that after becoming an MP, Oscar has never overlooked or neglected any of the party leaders. They said that Oscar always took MLAs, district and block level party presidents etc into confidence before expressing his support for any of the issue. They clarified that for legislative council election this time too, Oscar took a final decision after ministers, legislators and party leaders from the twin-districts expressed their individual opinions.

"Oscar Fernandes never indulges in purposefully neglecting or overlooking people, making false accusations or indulging in character assassination. No one can find a firm footing in politics unless they get support from party workers. None of the problems is so great that it is devoid of a solution. Real party workers are affectionate about Oscar, because of which he has grown to his present eminent stature. There are instances where political maneuvers aimed at camouflaging truth were hatched but Oscar has never been one to do that, and has always been forthright," they stated in their statement.