Future CM- KPCC leaders' checkmate to Siddu
B. ARAVINDA SHETTY
Bengaluru: Future chief minister candidate controversy seems not to die down in the Congress with more leaders in the party have projected themselves for CM candidate for 2023 Assembly elections.
Recently few supporting MLAs of Siddaramaiah openly called him as future Chief Minister candidate. Congress legislators, Zameer Ahmed Khan, Basavaraj Hitnal, Basavaraj Rayareddy, and Akhanada Srinivasamurthy publicly announced that Siddaramaiah will be their future Chief Minister.
MLAs statements triggered much debate in the party, even Congress high command has instructed party MLAs not to give such kind of controversial statements. But Congress leaders have decided to keep future CM issues alive till the 2023 Assembly polls.
KPCC President D.K.Shivakumar, a strong contender to CM post, met party high command recently and taken permission to reconstitute kpcc office bearers. At present majority of office, bearers are supporters of Siddaramaiah. Mr. Shivakumar wanted to appoint his supporters as party office bearers in district congress committees. MLA candidates will be shortlisted for the 2023 Assembly elections, based on the feedback from the district office-bearers. Thus Mr. Shivakumar is trying to take a grip on the party by appointing his supporters to key positions. He has started the exercise to select future MLAs for his side.
Mr. Shivakumar also complained to the party high command to prevail upon Congress legislative party leader Siddaramaiah to instruct his supporters not to talk about future cm candidates. Following party high command diktat Mr. Siddaramaiah has instructed party MLAs not to talk about cm candidate issue and said that CM candidate will be selected in the Congress legislative party meeting after winning the elections.
But before party high command intervention, Mr. Siddaramaiah has gained much momentum in the party, positioning himself as the future CM candidate. Tactfully he has sent the message to party high command that he will be the strong contender to the post.
Read: BJP is quandary to change CM, but congress is discussing it!
Party SC leaders meet
Another prominent SC leader and former KPCC President Dr. G. Parameshwar also thrown a hat into the ring, by saying that party high command will take a call on cm candidate and not by few MLAs.
Meeting of Dr. Parameshwar, K.H. Muniyappa, and B.K. Hariprasad here on Friday also a significant development in the party . OBC leader and two SC leaders have come together to make the counter strategy to Siddaramaiah. Mr. Muniyappa and Hariprasad supported Mr. Siddaramaiah to become CM in 2013, but later they were separated and strongly opposing the leadership of Mr. Siddaramaiah.
Sources in KPCC said that both Muniyappa and Hariprasad wished to push Mr. Parameshwar candidature for cm post, their intention is to push the Dalit cm candidate in Congress on front. If the Dalit cm candidate issue racked up, it is sure that party leaders will be more cautious to talk about future cm and it somehow restrict the leaders to talk about future cm issue.
Minority leaders oppose Zameer
Meanwhile, the statement of Congress MLA, Zameer Ahmed did not goes well with other minority leaders in the party.
Muslim MLAs, Rizwan Arshad, N.A. Harris C.M. Ibrahim, party working President Saleem Ahmed have opposed the statement of Zameer Ahmed Khan. They have urged the party high command to instruct party errant legislators not to give such statements, further minority MLAs of the party also stated that statement of Zameer was his personal views and not the opinion of all minority MLAs.
Mr. C.M. Ibrahim said that "Zameer is not authorized to give statements on behalf of Muslim leaders, how can he give such a blatant statement on the CM issue. We have 16 percent population, let Muslim leader become the CM. I am a strong contender for the CM post. I will request party high command to give me a chance to serve the state ", he said.
Migrants vs original congressmen clash
After a few MLAs supported to Siddaramaiah for the cm candidate, opponents of Siddaramaiah in the party have started a campaign of migrants vs original congressmen issue. According to them Mr. Siddaramaiah and his supporters were not original congressmen, they switched over to Congress from other parties. CM post should go to original congress leaders, they argued. This campaign was started by Parmeshwar and D.K.Shivakumar team.
