Dalit leaders rally behind Priyank Kharge as BJP demands the Congress minister’s resignation over contractor suicide case

At a public meeting on January 6 in Bengaluru, several Dalit leaders and pontiffs from Karnataka came out in vehement support of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Priyank Kharge, whose close aide was named in a suicide note penned by Sachin Manappa Panchal, 26, a contractor from a village in Bidar district. Priyank Kharge, the son of Congress President, Mallikarjun Kharge, is, in his own right, a prominent Dalit leader.

Jnanaprakash Swamiji, the pontiff of the Urilinga Peddi Mutt, said, “Priyank Kharge is a leader of our [Dalit] community. If you [the BJP] attempt to target him, you will be finished.” Another pontiff, Basavanagideva Swamiji of the Chalavadi Guru Peetha, also warned the BJP: “If you gherao Priyank Kharge’s house [in Kalaburagi], should we remain quiet? Ambedkar may be a fashion for you but for us, he is our very breath.”

Speaking to Frontline, Mavalli Shankar, State convenor of the Dalit Sangharsh Samiti, who also participated in the event, said: “There is no mention of Priyank Kharge’s name in Panchal’s [suicide] note. Why is the BJP targeting a Dalit leader? Kharge is being targeted because he is ensuring that the corruption that took place during the BJP regime is slowly being revealed. How can we remain quiet when he is being targeted on trumped-up charges?”

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Shankar and other Dalit leaders and pontiffs appear to have taken their aggressive stance from Kharge himself, who warned BJP leaders in Karnataka that “…we are believers in the philosophy of Buddha and Basava and the blood of Ambedkar’s revolution flows in our veins. If we come out onto the streets, you will have to empty your homes and run away.”

Sachin Panchal died by suicide on December 26 last year by leaping onto a railway track. In a note, the young contractor had accused Raju Kapnoor, a former corporator and Congress leader from Kharge’s home base of Kalaburagi. He also named eight other local political leaders and contractors, of threatening, intimidating, and extorting money from him and, in his final plea, demanded that “strict legal action should be taken against the persons named”.

Unity over Kharge

While Priyank Kharge’s name was not mentioned in the note, members of the BJP were swift to allege that Kapnoor was a close aide of Kharge; State BJP president B.Y. Vijayendra demanded the Minister’s resignation and that the suicide case should be handed over to the CBI. With the issue snowballing into a major controversy, senior Congress leaders united in their support of Kharge—Chief Minister Siddaramaiah emphatically asserted that Kharge would not resign.

While refusing to hand over the case to the CBI, the Congress-led State government handed over the investigation of the case to the State police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). In its first findings, the CID confirmed that the death note had been written by Panchal.

Responding to this, the BJP ratcheted up their attack with a barrage of cheeky posts on X insinuating that Panchal’s death was murder and that Kharge headed a gang of supari (contract) killers who were proficient at killing opponents and ensuring that the investigation was handed over to a pliant CID, where it would quietly reach a dead end.

As part of their protest, the BJP even attempted to lay siege to Kharge’s house in Kalaburagi on January 4 with the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, alleging that Kharge ran the “Republic of Kalaburagi like his fiefdom”.

N. Ravikumar, Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) and BJP spokesperson told Frontline, “How can an independent investigation be conducted while Priyank Kharge remains in office? An impartial judicial probe must be conducted and for this Kharge must resign as his close aide is mentioned in the suicide letter. There are several serious issues mentioned in Panchal’s suicide note, which must be investigated.” He added that in 2022 when then-BJP Minister K.S. Eshwarappa’s name came up in the suicide of a contractor, the Congress, which was in opposition, demanded his resignation; the Minister did resign to allow a fair investigation.

However, in 2022, Santosh Patil, the Belagavi-based contractor who died by suicide, had directly named Eshwarappa in his suicide note; whereas Panchal did not name Priyank Kharge.

Kharge responded to the BJP’s allegations by stating that there is nothing to link him to the suicide and that the BJP “was clutching at straws in their attempt to distract the public from the massive Congress protests against [Home Minister] Amit Shah because of his insult to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar”. He added that the BJP “is a divided house in Karnataka” and its leaders are protesting against multiple issues: the Waqf Board, maternal deaths, “and a third group is targeting me”. Kharge’s comment about factionalism within the BJP assumes salience as Vijayendra was conspicuously absent in the BJP protest in Kalaburagi.

Priyank Kharge has combatively led the battle against the BJP in Karnataka. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he was given credit for the Congress winning all five seats from Kalyana Karnataka (the north-east division of the State) even as the party faltered in its expectations in the rest of Karnataka. Ideologically, he is the sharpest critic of the BJP and RSS in the Congress after Siddaramaiah and does not hesitate to bring up the historical violence committed on the backward castes and the innate social hierarchy perpetuated in certain Hindu theological texts such as the Manusmriti.

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Thus, it is possible to understand the support of the Dalit leadership, who see Kharge as one of the most significant Dalit politicians in the State. It is precisely for this reason that the BJP has also picked up on Panchal’s suicide and is targeting Kharge so fiercely.

Dharaneesh Bookanakere, a Bengaluru-based political analyst, said: “Priyank Kharge’s consistent and scathing attacks on the BJP have become a problem for the party. The BJP has also failed to pick up an issue that resonates with the people: it tried to portray the five guarantees as a failure, targeted Siddaramaiah in the MUDA scam, tried to pick up the Waqf issue, but the byelection results (in November 2024) showed that it was unable to make a dent in the Congress’ support in Karnataka. They are demanding Kharge’s resignation now and weaken Mallikarjun Kharge’s stature.”