A “friendly fight” between two Congress MLAs sequestered at a holiday resort on Sunday landed one of them in hospital with a “minor injury” near his right eye.
Congress sources said J.N. Ganesh had punched Anand Singh at a late-night party during a quarrel triggered by questions of loyalty to a friend versus loyalty to the party.
Some 76 of the Congress’s 80 MLAs had since Friday been quarantined at the Eagleton Resort in Bidadi, some 40km from here, in the face of alleged BJP efforts to poach on them and topple the state’s Congress-Janata Dal Secular government.
Senior Congress minister Zameer Ahmed Khan admitted the brawl nearly seven hours after the news had trickled out of the resort’s secure walls.
“It was just a minor fight between good friends. Don’t you fight with your friends? It’s that kind of a minor fight and there’s nothing more to it,” he told reporters.
Khan’s admission of the fight came after BJP leaders claimed that Singh had been stabbed in the stomach and suffered serious head injuries too.
Asked what kind of injury Singh had suffered, Khan said it was “a very minor injury near the eye” and that the lawmaker would be discharged from hospital by Monday morning. “Some channels are claiming that Singh was badly beaten up and has 14 stitches. I can tell you, there is not even one stitch,” he said.
Khan would not say what led to the brawl. A Congress source who declined to be identified said it happened during the early hours of Sunday at a party thrown for the MLAs.
Apparently, Ganesh and Singh being close friends and both hailing from Bellary district, one had taken the other into confidence about his plans to defect to the BJP. The friend allegedly spilled the beans before the party bosses, also telling them how many MLAs were planning to leave.
It seems that after a few drinks, one accused the other of breaching a friend’s trust. As they quarrelled, an angry Ganesh allegedly hit Singh with a liquor bottle. Singh then got himself admitted to a private hospital in Bangalore.
Minister D.K. Shivakumar and his younger brother and parliamentarian D.K. Suresh — the camp’s minders — have packed Ganesh off to an unknown location, sources said.
Several senior party leaders, including state Congress working president Eshwar Khandre, visited Singh in hospital.
Singh’s wife Lakshmi Singh told a Kannada channel that she wouldn’t spare Ganesh if he had “even touched” her husband. “I’m at Mumbai airport with my son, waiting for our Bangalore flight. I’ve been continually calling my husband since I watched the media reports but could not reach him. I’m very worried,” she said.
Lakshmi added that when her son called Shivakumar, the minister told him nothing serious had happened.
“Media reports are saying that Ganesh attacked my husband. I won’t spare him if he has even touched my husband. I won’t remain silent — I’ll initiate legal action against him. Party loyalty is secondary to me,” she said.
A police inspector has visited Singh in hospital but no case has been lodged.
