Congress High Command Holds Crucial Meetings to Tackle Dissidence in Karnataka
Bengaluru: The Congress high command has convened two meetings with the party leaders in Karnataka in New Delhi on August 2, apparently to quell the dissidence brewing for some time now, top party sources said.
According to sources in the Congress, the first meeting will take place between the party high command and the top Congress leaders in Karnataka.
"In that meeting, party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress president D K Shivakumar, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil, general secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala, who is also the Karnataka in-charge and some other top functionaries will take part," a Congress office-bearer told PTI.
The second meeting will take place with the Congress ministers where some senior party MLAs may take part, the office-bearer added. The meetings are taking place in the wake of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting on Thursday remaining inconclusive to address the grievances of the party MLAs.
The Congress legislators are reportedly upset that no development works are taking place in their constituencies. They also charged during the meeting that ministers were not giving time to them and addressing their problems.
"These MLAs had also carried out a signature campaign which the party leaders did not appreciate. Even Chief Minister Siddaramaiah admonished them during the CLP meeting not to resort to such tactics as it brings a bad name to the government," another Congress insider said.
However, state Home Minister Dr Parameshwara denied that there was any dissent note during the CLP meeting.
"A few MLAs had written to the Chief Minister saying that he has to convene a meeting of the legislative party members. The reason was that the previous CLP meeting ended half-way because Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had wished to meet the ministers and MLAs," Parameshwara told reporters on Friday. He also said that Siddaramaiah told the MLAs that "writing letters is not proper."
"The Chief Minister said if you had told me orally, I would have convened the meeting. He requested them that the convention of writing letters should not be continued in future," Parameshwara said.
The MLAs were worried and upset ever since the Deputy Chief Minister Shivakumar told the legislators that there will not be any development works as most of the state's revenue will be spent on the five guarantees which will cost about Rs 60,000 crore annually.
The Congress wants to sustain its leading position in the state till the next Lok Sabha election, which is less than a year ago, the party functionary said.
