Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, who was lying low for a couple of weeks after the party’s poor show in the general elections, has once again proved that he calls the shots in Karnataka Congress.
It is widely believed that the party high command decided the suspension of former Minister R. Roshan Baig and restructuring of KPCC at the behest of Mr. Siddaramaiah.
During his stay in the national capital for the last three days, Mr. Siddaramaiah was apparently able to convince the party high command of the need to “discipline the party’s rank and file” in the State after recent disparaging remarks made against him and other party leaders.
On Tuesday, he met AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal and senior Congress leader A.K. Antony and discussed the post-election political developments in the State. On Wednesday, he called on party president Rahul Gandhi and wished him on his birthday and discussed political issues confronting the coalition government in the State.
In the first instance, Mr. Siddaramaiah silenced his critics by suspending seven-time MLA Mr. Baig. Armed with a KPCC complaint to AICC against Mr. Baig, Mr. Siddaramaiah reportedly told the party high command the need to take stern action against him.
After the exit poll survey results, Mr. Baig had hit out at Mr. Siddaramaiah for “dividing” the Hindu society by attempting to give separate religion tag to Lingayat community and “abusing” the Vokkaliga community during his tenure as the Chief Minister.
While dissolving the KPCC, Mr. Siddaramaiah successfully retained party president Dinesh Gundu Rao and working president Eshwar Khandre. Mr. Rao and Mr. Khandre are said to be loyalists of Mr. Siddaramaiah. The decision to retain KPCC chiefs may not go well with many leaders and MLAs in the party, who wanted to a change in the chiefs of the State unit of the party. In fact, some top leaders of the party were eyeing the KPCC chief’s post.
Cabinet expansion
Mr. Siddaramaiah’s opinion prevailed during discussions related to the Cabinet expansion too. Though Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy sought the Cabinet reshuffle and put forward the same demand before the Congress top brass, it was Mr. Siddaramaiah’s writ that prevailed, resulting in only expansion.
In the filling of Cabinet berth too, R. Shankar, who is from the Kuruba community to which Mr. Siddaramaiah also belongs, was inducted into the Cabinet. Mr. Shankar’s induction into the Cabinet apparently irked JD(S) leader H. Vishwanath, who has ever since been making public statements against Mr. Siddaramaiah.
Further, it was apparently at the behest of co-ordination panel chief of two parties that the Kumaraswamy government had reversed its Cabinet decision on selling 3,667 acres to JSW Steel in Ballari and referred it to the Cabinet panel again for detailed study. The reason was that Mr. Siddaramaiah, who took out a rally to Ballari during the BJP regime opposing illegal mining, did not want to seen as going against his earlier stand, a source said.