Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal
| Photo Credit: File photo

Basanagouda Patil Yatnal had challenged Minister Shivanand Patil and Congress MLA Vijayanand Kashappanavar to resign from the Karnataka Assembly and face him in by-polls. He vowed to contest against them and defeat them.

“If they do not resign by next Friday (May 9), I would doubt their parentage,” he said in Vijayapura on April 30. “They need not come to Vijayapura city to fight me. Let us all contest as independents. I will defeat them in their home turf,” he told reporters after Basava Jayanti celebrations in Vijayapura.

Minister for Textiles, Sugar, Sugarcane Development and Agricultural Marketing Shivanand S. Patil, the MLA from Basavana Bagewadi, submitted his resignation to the Speak U.T. Khader on May 2.

Mr. Kashappanavar, the MLA from Hungund, is yet to respond to the challenge.

Mr. Yatnal claimed that, unlike him, Mr. Patil and Mr. Kashappanavar are not mass leaders. He claimed to have won elections based on his charisma, and not party affiliation. “The same cannot be said about the two Congress leaders who would be easily defeated if they sought re-election,” he said.

Mr Yatnal called them anti-Hindutva and being engaged in Muslim appeasement.

He alleged that Shivanand Patil’s original name was Shivanand Hachadad, and that the Minister had changed his surname to gain respectability. He said Mr. Shivanand Patil would be defeated by Hindu voters who are upset with him for joining a rally by Muslims in Vijayapura recently.

Mr. Yatnal claimed that Mr. Kashappanavar is neither a leader of the Panchamasali Lingayats, nor Hindus. “Both these leaders will not get a single Hindu vote in the next election,” Mr Yatnal said.

Shivanand Patil told reporters in Bengaluru that he had accepted the challenge. “Now that I have resigned my seat in the Assembly, let Mr Yatnal vacate his,” he said. He has requested the Speaker to accept his resignation only after Mr. Yatnal’s resignation is accepted. “I will fight against him, in whichever Assembly segment he chooses. This is an individual decision, and not of the party or government. I have been hurt by Mr. Yatnal’s allegation,” Mr. Patil said.

This is not the first time Mr. Yatnal has been raising questions on Mr. Patil’s parentage. He had raised these issues in campaign rallies in the 2023 Assembly elections in Karnataka.