BENGALURU: Vocal critics of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah within the ruling Congress have evidently taken a stand to launch a rebellion of sorts within the party forum.
An indication of trouble brewing for the leader was hush-hush meetings of leaders and their supporters at different venues and one between leaders of Scheduled Castes with party general secretary B.K. Hariprasad after their meeting with vice president Rahul Gandhi here on October 9.
Besides a spate of suicides by farmers and an agrarian crisis because of the drought, these leaders are upset about lack of notable achievements of the dispensation headed by Siddaramaiah. They intend to draw Mr Gandhi’s attention to what they described as poor administration and not-up-to-the-mark leadership. Sources in the party said that they could not do this in the last 29 months, and thererfore this would be a major fulfillment.
Pointing at resentment among Dalits voiced earlier, sources said: “Former IAS officer K. Shivaram led a kind of agitation across the state for the cause of a Dalit occupying the post
of Chief Minister. It lost steam because no major leader backed him because he was an outsider. This time, things happened differently. Chalavadi Narayanaswamy met Gandhi and said what he wanted to say. No one went to the media to air their views. A few Dalit leaders conveying their opinion to Gandhi has given a jolt to other senior leaders. Now, it will be seen how the party’s central leadership will assess the situation in Karnataka,” sources added.
Sources said the next course of action would commence once Siddaramaiah reaches New Delhi, probably by this month end, to discuss the issue of cabinet reshuffle. If the party high command decides to cold-shoulder the CM, then the rebellion would gain steam. Going by the Congress handling dissidence in various states, the central leaders are unlikely to disturb Siddaramaiah. However, the expression of serious discontent would certainly take away his freedom and power of selecting candidates during cabinet reshuffle, sources added.
