Congress top brass discusses Karnataka leadership issue, to meet again

The leadership tussle between Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, was one of the key issues that the top leadership of the Congress party discussed on Saturday at Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s official residence.

Party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and the general secretary in-charge of organisation K.C. Venugopal attended the closed door meeting.

“We discussed Karnataka also but nothing came out of that. We will discuss again. There will be another discussion on Karnataka,” Mr. Venugopal told reporters after the meeting, and described it as “a general discussion on current political situation”.

However, sources told The Hindu that Saturday’s meeting was specifically to discuss the open leadership tussle in party-ruled Karnataka. On November 26, Mr. Kharge had said that “together with Sonia ji and Rahul [Gandhi], they would find a solution”.

The leadership tussle in Karnataka escalated after the Congress government reached the halfway point of its five year term on November 20 and supporters of the Deputy Chief Minister started talking about “power sharing” arrangement between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Mr. Shivakumar.

Admitting that there was a leadership tussle between him and his deputy, Mr. Siddaramaiah asked the top leadership to bring the “confusion” to a close.

During a visit to his constituency in Kanakapura, Mr. Shivakaumar too talked about a “secret deal” among “five-six” Congress members on the Chief Minister’s post, but said that he did not want to “speak publicly on it”.

However, on the instructions from the party high command, the two leaders have had two rounds of breakfast meetings and the duo have tempered down their public utterances on the issue since then.

While the Siddaramaiah camp maintains that he enjoys the support of 112 of the 139 party MLAs, those who are backing Mr. Shivakumar maintain that not honouring the power sharing arrangement would send a wrong signal.