Bengaluru: As discontentment among Karnataka Congress MLAs continues to grow, senior leaders, including Siddaramaiah and JD(S)’s HD Kumaraswamy, have stepped in to pacify the revolting leaders who have subjected the new alliance here to a new crisis altogether.
While the Congress High Command has asked former CM Siddaramaiah to immediately intervene and contain the growing rebellion, Kumaraswamy, too, met MB Patil, one of the senior disgruntled Congress leaders who were not given a ministry in the recent Cabinet expansion of the JD(S)-Congress coalition.
Siddaramaiah, who is touring Badami to “thank” its voters for electing him as an MLA, has appealed to his fellow Congressmen to wait for him to come back.
With several events lined up in Badami, Siddaramaiah, who has just started his tour on Friday dialed up MLAs Dr Sudhakar of Chikkaballapur and CS Shivalli of Dharwad. He is also expected to reach out to MB Patil and BC Patil.
Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy has met MB Patil, a prominent state Congress leader under whose leadership a section of dissatisfied legislators have been holding meetings.
"This is an issue that is not related to me, because these are decisions made within Congress party... I have understood his (Patil) feeling of pain that he has worked for Congress party when it needed, but feels let down now," Kumaraswamy, who is the leader of Congress-JD(S) joint legislature party, said.
Kumaraswamy said Patil had told him that he was not alone and would take a decision after consulting other like-minded MLAs, adding, "I have gathered his feelings; I request Delhi leaders (Congress) to immediately act to find a solution."
Ahead of Kumaraswamy's visit, senior Congress leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister and Pradesh Congress Chief G Parameshwara, Ministers D K Shivakumar, K J George and R V Deshpande, met Patil at his residence to mollify him.
In the latest crisis for the Karnataka government, at least a dozen senior leaders who failed to make it to the state cabinet have raised the banner of revolt and claim that these are not empty threats.
Veteran MLAs MB Patil, Roshan Baig, Ramalinga Reddy, M Krishnappa, Dinesh Gundurao, Ishwar Khandre, Shamanur Shivashankarappa and Satish Jharkiholi are upset with the manner in which the ministers were chosen by the high command and are holding several rounds of talks to chalk out their future strategy.
Several party stalwarts were kept out of the Cabinet in Wednesday’s expansion. Feeling humiliated, the leaders have now come to open rebellion against the party itself.
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