‘Held responsible for someone else's mistake; everyone considered my aide': Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge
He made this remark after photos of him, his father and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge with Lingaraj Kanni, a Congress worker from Kalaburagi who was arrested in Kalyan city, were shared on social media on Sunday.
The Maharashtra Police arrested Kanni along with three others last month under the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act for allegedly supplying 120 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup.
Responding to media queries, Priyank Kharge said that the Congress would not defend Kanni's crimes. 'We have recommended the district Congress unit to suspend him from the party,' he said.
Kanni, he said, was the president of the Kalaburagi South Block Congress. 'He was a Congress office-bearer cannot be denied… Since he was in the party, it is normal that he shares the stage with me. Only for this reason, he is called my aide,' Priyank Kharge said.
'How is that everyone is my aide? In the Bidar case, they (the BJP) alleged that the accused were my aides. In the Belagavi PDO case, the accused was considered my aide,' he said, adding that he was being held responsible for someone else's mistake.
The Congress neither encourages nor accepts such activities, the Karnataka minister said.
'If something happens in the Kalyana Karnataka region, then Priyank Kharge is held responsible. If it happens in Karnataka, I am responsible. If it happens in Kashmir or Canada, then too I am responsible according to the BJP,' the Congress minister added.
The accused, Kanni, had joined the Congress from the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections in 2023.
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