Several Congress leaders and workers of Devanahalli tendered their resignation en-masse on Wednesday (23 March) over reports that the party would be fielding former union minister K H Muniyappa from the constituency in the upcoming polls.

The list of leaders includes Devanahalli Congress president Prasanna Kumar, district Congress vice-president Santh Kumar, four block presidents, municipal councillors, and others who sent mass resignation letters to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Shivkumar.

The disgruntled leaders said that, “K H Muniyappa has not taken part in any party building and consequently has no connection with any of the party cadres to face the upcoming elections.”

They demanded that some local leader should get the ticket to contest from the seat and not any “outsiders”.

They also contested that the candidates fielded by other parties also belong to the same community as Muniyappa and the votes would therefore get split among them.

K H Muniyappa is a former Member of Parliament and represented the Kolar constituency from 1991 to 2019. He was a former minister in the UPA-II government and lost his seat in the 2019 general elections.

He was defeated in his bastion by former municipal councillor and BJP candidate S Muniswamy.

Muniyappa is now trying to enter the Vidhan Sabha through the Devanahalli seat, but the recent exodus of the local party leaders has left the party embarrassed.

Devanahalli constituency is currently represented by L N Narayanswamy from the Janata Dal (Secular) party.

Devanahalli assembly constituency, located in the northern part of Bengaluru rural district, is part of the Chikaballapur Lok Sabha constituency, adjacent to the Kolar constituency.