The Hindu
BANGALORE, Mar 6: Ahead of the coming Lok Sabha polls, the Janata Dal (Secular) has reconstituted its State unit by appointing the former Minister Iqbal Ansari as working president in place of the former MP C. Narayanaswamy.
According to a new list of party’s State unit office-bearers released on Thursday, the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy will continue to be the president while Mr. Ansari will take over the mantle of working president from Mr. Narayanaswamy, who will now head the party’s political affairs committee.
Mr. Ansari’s appointment as working president appears to be aimed at compensating the representation to the minority community in the party after Merajuddin Patel, who was the State unit President, died in October last year. Y.S.V. Datta has been retained as the party’s spokesperson while other prominent leaders figuring in the reconstituted list of party’s state unit office bearers include P.C. Siddanagouder (secretary-general), D. Manjunath (chairman, parliamentary affairs committee), K.V. Narayanaswamy (secretary, political affairs committee), Basavaraj Horatti (chairman, publicity committee), Abdul Azeem (chairman, manifesto drafting committee), besides David Simeon (chairman, disciplinary committee).
The party has also appointed 14 leaders as senior vice-presidents including Bandeppa Kashempur, Leeladevi R. Prasad, H.K. Kumaraswamy, B. Satyanarayana, Alangur Srinivas and K. Amarnath Shetty, besides MLC S Chikkamadu.
The party has appointed three leaders, including the former Minister Alkod Hanumanthappa, as vice-presidents. General secretaries include party MLAs H.C. Balakrishna and B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan, besides former MLA Suneetha Veerappa Gowda and party leader Arvind M. Dalvoy.
The different wings of the party’s State unit will have as their presidents Sunil Hegde (State Yuva Janata Dal), K.V. Amarnath (Backward Classes wing), Jyothi Reddy (women’s wing), K. Annadani (SC and ST wing), H.M. Shakeel Nawaz (minority wing), B. Nageshwar Rao (farmers’ wing), D.L. Jagadish (legal wing), Dodda Ganesh (youth affairs and sports wing), D.K. Devaraj (students’ wing) and H.K. Kumar (cultural wing).