Jarkiholi jitters: Congress girds up its defences

Bengaluru: With former minister, Ramesh Jarkiholi, remaining incommunicado ever since he was dropped from the cabinet during a reshuffle on Dec. 22, his sibling and forest minister, Satish Jarkiholi, and three senior leaders are reportedly working on a two-pronged strategy to prevent disgruntled legislators from rocking the eight-month-old coalition.  

Sources in Congress disclosed to Deccan Chronicle that deputy chief minister, Dr G. Parameshwar, KPCC president, Dinesh Gundurao and Mr Satish Jarkiholi are in touch with Congress MLAs from northern districts, promising them Cabinet berths in future on the one hand and warning them not to rely on the BJP's promise of tickets for elections, on the other. While Mr Satish Jarkiholi has been meeting MLAs from Belagavi and Raichur districts, Mr Gundurao and Dr Parameshwara are said to be in touch with legislators from other districts. All these leaders are reportedly promising legislators that new faces would be given a berth in the cabinet by September or October when the coalition government completes one- and- a- half years of its term.  They are also warning them against putting their faith in the BJP and jeopardizing their political careers, sources added.

These Congress leaders are countering the BJP's alleged mission to topple the H D Kumaraswamy government in a hush-hush operation without drawing much attention to it as they feel this would be the best method to checkmate the saffron party from gaining an advantage in this tug- of- war, explain sources.

While the Congress has been accusing the BJP of luring its MLAs with the promise of crores rupee to topple the coalition government, leaders of BJP have maintained all along that they are doing nothing of the sort, and are likely to crumble under the weight of its own internal pressures.