More than two months after his son Mohammed Nalapad Haris was arrested for assaulting a man at an upscale eatery in Bengaluru, two-time Congress MLA from Bengaluru’s Shantinagar NA Haris expressed confidence of winning for a third straight time.
In an exclusive interview with TNM, Haris said, “I don’t want to discuss the subject at all. It’s already in the judiciary, the case is going on. As a good citizen, as a father, as an MLA, I made him surrender immediately and said let the law of the land take its action on it. There is nothing connected with me. The party has nothing to do with it.”
(You can watch the video of the interview here)
When asked about the fact that the BJP was using his son’s case against him, Haris said, “They (opponents) don’t have anything against me. So, they are talking about personal issues and blowing it out of proportion.”
He went on to add, “You need to understand what kind of people the BJP are. They have all been to jail and are booked in so many cases. Who are they to talk about me? Even the BJP candidate and his brothers have been booked in many cases. They are all bad elements for the society. For an election it is important to talk about development and what you have done and what you plan to do for next five years…not all these things.”
Distancing himself from his son’s actions, Haris said, “I am not someone who supports such kind of incident at all. This incident should not have happened. And it hurts as a father, as a human being, as an MLA.”
Refusing to speak at length on why his name did not appear in Congress’ first list of candidates, Haris said, “You have to ask the party for that. I’m the candidate for the Congress party. The Congress party never said anywhere that they are not giving the ticket to me”. He also emphasised that he had full faith in his party and the Congress knows him well.
Haris also claimed that the Congress would better its 2013 performance, where it won 121 seats in the elections, stating, “there is no question of a hung Assembly”.
When asked whether Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would be able to tide over the Modi wave, MLA NA Haris said, “There is a lot of difference between Siddaramaiah and Modi. Modi is an actor, an orator and he only talks lies. He is only trying to convince people with his lies. Maybe we are the first government to do everything in the manifesto. Can Narendra Modi say that? What are his achievements? You can’t compare Siddaramaiah to Modi?”
Calling Siddaramaiah a far better administrator, Haris went on to say, “We have here a Chief Minister and a government which is committed and they have executed whatever they have committed. The government has given 7kgs of rice free for BPL card holders and there is no budget deficit, they’re not lacking in funds.”