Tweet Lands Veerappa Moily’s Son in Soup With Karnataka Congress

In a now-deleted tweet, Veerappa Moily alleged that the Congress selects candidates for money.

Harsha Moily, son of former Karnataka chief minister Veerappa Moily.

(Photo: The News Minute)

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee on Saturday, 17 March, issued a show cause notice to Harsha Moily, the son of former Karnataka chief minister Veerappa Moily, over a controversial tweet from the latter’s account which alleged that there was “money politics.”

Karnataka will go to polls in a few months.

Interestingly, while Harsha has been asked for an explanation, Veerappa, the chief of the party’s manifesto committee, has not been asked for an explanation, although he had tweeted about it too.

The tweet, which was deleted soon after it was posted on Thursday night, said, “INC needs to solve money politics. We can’t afford to have road contractors and their nexus with the state PWD minister determine how candidates are selected for the upcoming assembly elections.”

Incidentally, HC Mahadevappa, Karnataka’s minister for public works, is a close associate of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The tweet also tagged official handles of Rahul Gandhi, the party and Harsha Moily.

The same message was also posted from Harsha’s account, which was also deleted.

I don’t know how this happened. Neither me nor my son would speak against the party in a public forum like Twitter. I will delete the tweet and get to the bottom of how it happened.

Veerappa Moily to TNM

Both Harsha and Mahadevappa’s son are reportedly seeking tickets from Karkala, Udupi.

Speaking to TNM, KPCC officials said that they suspected that Harsha tweeted from his father’s account. “The party knows that Veerappa could not have done it as he is not good at these things. He probably does not know how Twitter works.”

“He has been kept on hold,” said another party official, suggesting that anytime other than this, he would have been suspended by the party.

Meanwhile, the controversial tweet gave Opposition BJP enough fodder to start a row.

BJP’s chief ministerial aspirant BS Yeddyurappa said, “At last someone’s conscience in @INCKarnataka prodded him to speak up! @moilyv ji is right. We have been saying that @siddaramaiah is #10PercentCM. With contractors filling PWD min's deep pockets, state's coffers & roads are in tatters. Congress veteran’s view validates our point.”

(This article was originally published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)