Karnataka: Congress bosses undecided, but Siddaramaiah camp jubilant

Supporters of Siddaramaiah celebrate outside his residence, in Bengaluru, on Wednesday. Pic/PTI

AICC in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala on Wednesday said that a decision on the chief minister will be taken by Thursday latest even as Siddaramaiah's supporters were celebrating outside his residence in Bengaluru and his native village. Soon after, security had to be heightened in Ramanagara, the home district of party's state chief D K Shivakumar, as a precautionary measure in light of his supporters staging protests at multiple places after some media outlets claimed that he lost the race for the CM's post.

Earlier in the day, Surjewala said a new cabinet will be in place in the next 48-72 hours, even as the two frontrunners held separate meetings with the Congress central leadership in Delhi, including Rahul Gandhi. Siddaramaiah's supporters shouted slogans and poured milk on his life size cut out in front of his residence here. Similar scenes were witnessed in his home district of Mysuru, and native village of Siddaramanahundi. His followers and well-wishers set off crackers, danced and distributed sweets.

Meanwhile, an alert has been sounded in Ramanagara where police personnel were deployed at important public places and the district Congress office to prevent any untoward incident, official sources said. The police presence was beefed up in particular in Kanakapura where Shivakumar hails from and got re-elected to the Karnataka Assembly in the May 10 polls.

Also Read: New Karnataka CM likely in a day or two, cabinet within 48-72 hours: Congress

Siddu blamed for MLAs' defection to BJP, JD(S)-Cong govt collapse

Two ministers in the outgoing BJP government on Wednesday sought to blame Siddaramaiah for the defection of a group of his party's MLAs that led to the collapse of the H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in 2019. Previously in Congress, K Sudhakar and S T Somashekar were among the 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs who defected to the BJP, leading to the collapse of the coalition government and the subsequent rise of the BJP regime. "During the JDS-Congress coalition govt in 2018, whenever MLAs (Congress) went to Siddaramaiah with their concerns, he used to express his helplessness and say that he has no say in the govt and his constituency/district works itself are stalled," Sudhakar claimed.

Further, Siddaramaiah used to assure MLAs to wait till 2019 Lok Sabha polls and come what may he won't allow the then coalition government to continue even for a single day after the 2019 polls. Ultimately, some MLAs including him had to inevitably quit Congress and go back to the people in bypolls, to protect the ‘karyakartas' and supporters in their constituencies, he said, and asked "Can Shri Siddaramaiah deny the fact that he had no role, implicitly or explicitly, in this move by Congress MLAs?" Somashekar said, "No one can deny the truth that this pushed some of us to quit the party and go for bypolls."

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