Karnataka election: DK Shivakumar gets emotional as he recalls Sonia Gandhi’s jail meeting
Karnataka Election results: Congress’s DK Shivakumar cries as he recalls Sonia Gandhi.
DK Shivakumar, overjoyed by the Congress’s performance in the Karnataka assembly election 2023, on Saturday got emotional while recalling senior leader Sonia Gandhi‘s visit to Delhi’s Tihar jail to meet him in 2020 when he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case.
Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar talks to the media on assembly polls results in Bengaluru on Saturday, (PTI)
“I assured Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge that I will deliver Karnataka. I can’t forget Sonia Gandhi coming to meet me in jail,” Shivakumar told reporters as -the Congress was set to win the Karnataka assembly elections on Saturday, defeating the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a big boost ahead of Lok Sabha elections due next year.
Shivakumar, who is a top contender for the chief minister’s post, said, “The Congress office is our temple. We will decide our next step at the Congress office.”
Shivakumar had played a key role to shelter the Congress’s Gujarat lawmakers ahead of a crucial Rajya Sabha election in 2017, sequestering them at his resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru. It is around this time that the income tax authorities raided properties linked to Shivakumar. In the raids, the income tax department officials said they had seized unaccounted cash of ₹8.82 crore from his Delhi house. Shivakumar was arrested by the ED in a money laundering case based on a complaint filed by the tax department in September 2018 alleging hawla transactions and tax evasion.
Shivakumar was leading from the Kanakapura assembly constituency against his closest rival R Ashoka of the BJP in the assembly election.
Shivakumar, 60, had been elected from the seat in the last three Karnataka assembly elections in 2008, 2013 and 2018. Shivakumar, who began his political career in the early 1980s, has been elected as an MLA multiple times from the Kanakapura constituency. He has also been a minister in the Karnataka government on several occasions. He played a significant role in addressing power-related issues and initiatives in the state.
