Discontent simmers in Congress against state leadership

Belagavi: Discontent within the Congress in Karnataka has come to the fore again, with several party legislators holding a separate meeting during the ongoing winter session of the legislature here, to express their dismay against the party leadership in the state.

The legislators, mostly the party’s old guard, are also scheduled to meet Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge soon, party sources said.

During the meeting a few days ago, the legislators, mostly ministerial aspirants, expressed discontent over the delay and lack of clarity on cabinet expansion, and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah’s style of functioning, they said.

According to reports, about eight to 10 party legislators were part of the meeting, including senior MLAs Roshan Baig, Ramalinga Reddy, and MTB Nagraj, among others.

At least two legislators have confirmed about such a meeting taking place in Belagavi during the initial days of the session that began on Monday.

“Yes, we had a meeting…we are unhappy with the way a few people are handling the entire thing and the way the CLP leader is behaving,” an MLA said on grounds of anonymity.

Expressing strong reservation about Siddaramaiah’s absence from the session, he said: “we met and shared our disappointment and decided to take up the issue with the high command at an appropriate time.” 

Siddaramaiah skipped the first half of the winter session as he was on a personal visit abroad.

He has now returned to Bengaluru and is likely to attend the session from next week.

Stating that the MLAs planned to meet Kharge and were waiting for him to return from Chhattisgarh, a legislator said they had no intention to destabilize the government and there was no question about them crossing over to another party.

“We want to send a message to the state leadership- Siddaramaiah,” the MLA added.

Noting that Siddaramaiah should have called a meeting of MLAs along with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, to discuss issues faced by party MLAs under the coalition government and constituency-related development activities as promised, he said the central leadership, despite understanding developments here, was quiet due to the coming Lok Sabha polls.

He said Siddaramaiah’s candidate for the Council chairman post S R Patil not being considered by the high command was an example of the party leadership being not happy with him.

“They too understand that because of his arrogance, the party had to pay the price in the assembly polls,” he said.

The MLA also termed the repeated postponement of cabinet expansion as “natak”, as he expressed doubts about it taking place on December 22, the date announced by the coalition leaders.

“I don’t think they will do it ( expansion) before Sankranti,” he said.

Earlier too, despite the ruling coalition leaders in Karnataka announcing December 22 as the date for the much-awaited expansion of the H D Kumaraswamy ministry, several Congress MLAs had expressed doubts about it taking place till the Lok Sabha polls early next year.

Meanwhile, reports suggest that amid this development, another group of Congress legislators loyal to Siddaramaiah is scheduled to meet him in Bengaluru in one or two days.