Digvijay hints at re-entry of George in Siddaramaiah cabinet

Hyderabad, Sep 20: The Congress leadership believes there was no "enough reason" for former Karnataka Minister K J George to resign, senior party leader Digvijaya Singh said today, hinting at his likely return into the Siddaramaiah cabinet.

"As far as we are concerned, merely a complaint or statement by a person who commits suicide is not enough reason for anyone to resign," the party General Secretary in charge of Karnataka Affairs told PTI here.

Singh was asked if the Congress leadership has approved the reinstatement of George in the wake of Karnataka CID earlier this month giving a clean chit to him and two senior police officers in connection with the alleged suicide of Dy SP M K Ganapathy.

[Read: Karnataka: Another DySP commits suicide, names minister KJ George]

"There was no reason for him (George) to resign in the first place but on his personal thing he resigned. As far as the high command is concerned, there is nothing against George," the two-time Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister said.

Asked if the party high command has given green signal for the re-entry of George, Singh said, "That is for the Chief Minister to decide. It is the prerogative of the Chief Minister. We do not interfere in these matters."

[Read: Karnataka to hold judicial probe into cop's suicide]

Ganapathy was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a room at a lodge in Madikeri on July 7, prior to which he had in an interview to a local TV channel said the Minister and the two senior police officers, A M Prasad and Pranab Mohanty, would be responsible "if anything happens to me".

George had on July 18 resigned after a court directed police to register an FIR against him and the two police officers in connection with the matter. On criticism in some quarters that Karanataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah did not handle the situation well on September 12 when Bengaluru witnessed largescale violence over the Cauvery water sharing row with Tamil Nadu, Singh admitted the state government was "not very stringent" on that day.

[Read: DySP Ganapathy case: Did a senior cop try to stop FIR against George? ]

"The agitation is by farmers. No government, when it's a sensitive issue of water, can be seen to be aggressively taking action against genuine demands of farmers which the government also feels the same way. So, the Karnataka government was sort of not very stringent on the first day. So, some violence did happen. From second day onwards, it was controlled," he said.

PTI