Sonia Gandhi to resolve Karnataka Congress crisis? Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar to meet her in Delhi tomorrow
Meeting with Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, will take place after the party's 'Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod’ rally at Ramlila Maidan
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar will meet Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on December 14, sources said on Saturday, amid their ongoing tiff over the top spot in the state.
Their meeting with Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, will take place after the party's mega rally being held at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi to further its ‘Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod’ ('unseat the vote thieves’) campaign over alleged collusion between the ruling BJP and the Election Commission, people familiar with the matter told HT.
Party president Mallikarjun Kharge had said about three weeks ago that the “confusion” would be fixed by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, plus himself.
The information about a possible meeting with Sonia Gandhi came even as wrangling by both camps continued in Belagavi, where the Karnataka assembly's winter session is currently on.
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Congress MLA Iqbal Hussain said on Friday that DK Shivakumar will become the CM after the session of legislature, news agency PTI reported this morning.
The MLA from Ramanagara was among the ministers and legislators, who met for dinner with Shivakumar on Thursday. "MLAs from various constituencies have come for the session; it is a rare opportunity for all of us to meet. We had dinner together. What's there in that? Can having food together be called a show of strength?" Hussain told reporters here in response to a question about the dinner meeting.
On why only those close to Shivakumar were invited for the dinner, he said, “all are friends”.
Asked if there was news he wanted to share from the dinner meet, he said, "I'm giving the good news. He will become (CM) after the session, he will become. What's wrong with it?"
Hussain claimed 50-55 MLAs were at the dinner, but he added that “numbers are not important here”.
CM Siddaramaiah held a similar dinner meeting a day before.
The Congress has a comfortable majority, with nearly 140 MLAs, in the 224-seat House.
The leadership tussle has intensified since the Congress government reached the halfway mark of its five-year term on November 20, as reports have said there was a deal to split the CM-ship for 2.5 years each as part of a generational handover. For the record, neither of the leaders nor the party confirmed such an arrangement, even though Shivakumar mentioned a “secret deal” and gave no detail some days ago.
So far, Shivakumar, 63, has not made an open play against Siddaramaiah, 77, of the kind that a younger Sachin Pilot made some years ago against veteran leader Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan. Pilot did not have the numbers despite gathering some MLAs, and lost his deputy CM's chair and the state Congress chiefship. The party lost the subsequent election too.
In Karnataka, the messaging has been mostly cryptic.
The CM and deputy CM even held breakfast meetings at each other's residences recently, upon instructions from the “high command”; and seemed to have paused the row.
That was seen as a move to not give the state's opposition BJP too much ammunition for the Belagavi session of the assembly. The session is coming to a close on December 19.
