Siddaramaiah convenes meeting of HDK and Cheluvarayaswamy on Ugadi day to break ice

Bengaluru: With things seemingly going out of control in Mandya parliamentary constituency because of the lack of co-operation between JD(S) and Congress workers, former CM and CLP leader Siddaramaiah has convened a meeting at his residence in Bengaluru on April 6 which will be attended by CM H.D. Kumaraswamy and former minister, N Cheluvayaraswamy to break the ice between the two leaders.

According to sources, Siddaramaiah has arranged the face to face meeting in the wake of a threat to the joint campaign in Mandya where Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of Mr Kumaraswamy, is contesting as the coalition candidate. The Congress high command is said to be upset with the developments in Mandya and wants to end the row at the earliest.

Former Congress legislators who were defeated by JD(S) MLAs in last year's Assembly polls like N Cheluvarayaswamy, P.M. Narendra Swamy and Ramesh Bandisidde Gowda have stayed away from the joint campaign asserting that they have not been invited by JD(S) leaders.

At a recent meeting with Siddaramaiah, they had complained that the JD(S) did not expect any co-operation from the Congress as it had won all seven Assembly seats in the 2018 polls in Mandya district and even the LS bypoll held in November last year. In fact, they were not even consulted for courtesy sake when Kumaraswamy decided to make his son, Nikhil Kumaraswamy the Mandya candidate, the Congress leaders complained.