Identified to talk his thoughts, together with on points that may trod politically incorrect floor, former Karnataka minister and Congress working president Satish Jarkiholi discovered himself in a contemporary controversy Monday.
The 60-year-old stated the phrase ‘Hindu’ had origins in Persian and the unique phrase didn’t carry a pleasing that means. Not simply the BJP, even the Congress swiftly distanced itself from Jarkiholi’s remarks.
By all accounts, the sugar baron from Belagavi district in north Karnataka, the second of 5 Jarkiholi brothers, 4 of whom are in politics throughout events, and a pacesetter of the Scheduled Tribe Valmiki Nayak neighborhood, is an uncommon politician — and an uncommon businessman — for not letting his pursuits are available the best way of his “rationalist” beliefs.
On December 6, 2014, when he was the excise minister in a barely one-year-old Congress authorities, Jarkiholi had dined and spent an evening at a graveyard in Belagavi metropolis in an effort to dispel superstition round graveyards.
Jarkiholi and associates have been urgent on the time for the introduction of a Karnataka anti-superstition Invoice by the Congress authorities headed by Siddaramaiah. They selected the loss of life anniversary of the architect of the Structure, B R Ambedkar, for the graveyard keep. “I need to bust myths that encompass graveyards and the worry connected to them, and present that they’re peaceable locations,” the soft-spoken Congress chief stated on the time, as all the time temporary and to the purpose and never given to public outbursts.
He’s extensively believed to have give up the ministry in 2015 over points such because the failure of the Siddaramaiah authorities to maneuver on the anti-superstition Invoice. Jarkiholi took the step regardless of his previous affiliation with Siddaramaiah; the 2 have been collectively within the JD(S) earlier than leaving the celebration for the Congress.
Along with his giant reserves – the MLA from Yamakanamaradi, he declared belongings value over Rs 148 crore from his sugar and allied companies in 2021 — Jarkiholi can be believed to have bank-rolled Siddaramaiah within the 2013 polls, when the Congress gained and Siddaramaiah turned CM.
Jarkiholi has additionally commented previously that individuals like him and Microsoft founder Invoice Gates had develop into rich with out worshipping Goddess Lakshmi. One of many sources of his recognition in Belagavi is an annual body-building contest he organises for native youths underneath the aegis of his Satish Sugars enterprise.
The newest remarks by Jarkiholi got here at an occasion held Sunday within the Nippani city of Belagavi to have fun the concepts of Buddha, Basavanna, and Ambedkar, who rebelled towards Hindu ideologies and practices, as a counter to the BJP’s Hindutva.
“The place did the phrase Hindu originate from? Is it ours? It’s Persian. Then what’s the relation between it (Hindu) and India? How did ‘Hindu’ develop into yours? This must be mentioned,” he stated. The senior Congress chief went on so as to add: “In the event you perceive the that means of the phrase, you’ll be ashamed… The that means of the phrase Hindu may be very soiled. I’m not saying this. That is on the web site… You might have introduced this faith, (and) phrase from someplace else and are imposing it on us.” (The phrase Hindu is usually understood to be derived from the Sindhu or Indus River.)
Because the BJP in poll-bound Karnataka attacked the Congress chief, AICC normal secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala stated Jarkiholi’s remarks have been “deeply unlucky” and the celebration condemned them. In-charge of Karnataka for the Congress, Surjewala stated on social media: “Hinduism is a lifestyle and civilizational actuality. Congress constructed our Nation to respect each faith, perception, and religion. That is the essence of India.”
By the way, Jarkiholi’s remarks come at a time when he has instructed that he may very well be among the many Congress chief ministerial candidates if the celebration wins in 2023, placing him in competitors with Siddaramaiah and D Okay Shivakumar.
Congress sources who labored carefully with Jarkiholi when he was a minister within the Siddaramaiah authorities insist his resignation from the Cupboard was concerning the CM not taking decisive motion on a number of points, together with the anti-superstition legislation, and never continuing on it expeditiously.
Subsequently, in 2020, Jarkiholi was made a working president of the Congress. Final yr, the celebration fielded him for the Belagavi Lok Sabha constituency bypoll, which he misplaced narrowly to Mangala Angadi, the widow of former BJP Union minister Suresh Angadi.
Whereas Satish Jarkiholi has once more stirred the pot now, the opposite brothers too are frequent newsmakers. Ramesh Jarkiholi, 62, a BJP MLA, was compelled to give up as minister over rape allegations in 2021. Balachandra Jarkiholi, 56, a BJP MLA, and Lakhan Jarkiholi, 51, an Unbiased member of the Legislative Council, wield sizeable political clout in Belagavi. The brothers are seen as ruthless in the direction of rivals who cross their path in Belagavi, and two of them (Satish and Bhimshi, together with their father Laxman Jarkiholi) have been accused within the Eighties of killing an excise inspector over an alleged dispute involving liquor contracts. They have been later acquitted.
The pool of events throughout the household means it has unfold its bets, making certain that no less than one among them is within the ruling institution, at the same time as they broaden their investments within the sugar and liquor sector, together with to neighbouring Maharashtra.
However, of all of the Jarkiholi brothers, Satish Jarkiholi is taken into account to have the political acumen and ambitions that may take him past the confines of Belagavi. The Sunday occasion, the rallying of causes espoused by Ambedkar, Basavanna and Buddha, are seen as aiming for the political base of Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and Lingayats (who revere Basavanna), towards the Hindutva politics of the BJP.