Daijiworld Media Network - Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Jun 4: In continuance of the utterances being made by various Congress leaders against district Congress Committee president and MLA Ramanath Rai, zilla panchayat member G Sadanand Malli launched a diatribe against the beleaguered leader on Wednesday June 3. By creating separate Moily and Poojary factions in the district and blocking the emergence of younger leaders in the party, Rai has become directly responsible for the downfall of the Congress Party here, he alleged.

Speaking to reporters at B C Road on Wednesday, Malli said he has been keenly observing the actions of Rai since the time he was the Bantwal town municipal president and president of the District Kissan Committee. "Rai has always been making efforts to foil efforts of the activists to rise in the party hierarchy," he complained.

"Rai had blocked the attempts made by my son and current INTUC president Rakesh malli to fight as the party candidate from Suratkal and Puttur constituencies. During the previous election of the local town municipal president and vice-president, he had supported the candidature of Vasanti Gangadhar with the only motive of stopping my wife Swarnalata S Malli from getting that post. Now, he has been giving false information through the block president of the party that Vasanti has been expelled from the party," he stated.

He also charged Rai of acting at the behest of yes-men like Vittal block Congress Committee president M S Mohammed. Malli alleged that Ramanath Rai was indirectly responsible for the earlier debacles of Congress Party leaders like former union minister B Janardan Poojary, Veerappa Moily, former MP Vinay Kumar Sorake, Bondala Jagannath Shetty, K M Ibrahim, Blasius M D'Souza, Vijaykumar Shetty etc.

He clarified, that the verdict in the court of the district deputy commissioner in the case pertaining to Vasanti Gangadhar's expulsion from the party has come in Vasanti's favour, as the petitioners absented themselves from several consecutive hearings.