BENGALURU: The rift between KPCC president DK Shivakumar and Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah has come to the fore with former minister MR Seetharam, who missed getting nominated for the MLC polls, holding a parallel meeting to decide on his political future on Friday.
After eliciting responses from his well-wishers, especially Siddaramaiah’s emissary G Huchappa, former Bengaluru mayor Seetharam clarified that he will decide in a month whether to continue in Congress.
Huchappa said that since Siddaramaiah will address the issue, Seetharam should not quit the party. Seetharam said, “Some of you have advised me not to quit. But a historical decision will be made which will help us all in the next meeting.”
Making a veiled reference to Shivakumar, he said the KPCC leader did not have the courtesy to speak to him after refusing him an MLC seat. “We are contemporaries. He has been in the party for 39 years, while I have worked for 38. As a treasurer, I had run the show and helped in many electoral victories,” he added.
He also lambasted Shivakumar for removing his son Raksha Ramaiah from the state Youth Congress president’s post after one year despite being elected. “I do not know what trait he had seen in other youth leaders,” he said, referring to Nalpad, “as he was made president despite his nomination paper being rejected”. Criticising former Union minister M Veerappa Moily, Seetharam said Moily became a Congress candidate from the Chikkaballapura Lok Sabha constituency in 2009 though his name was cleared.
Former MLC MD Lakshminarayan, Siddarmaiah’s aide and former associate of ex-CM BS Yediyurappa, warned Congress will have to face the repercussions of its leaders’ conspiracy to snub backward classes leaders. Venugopal, president of Balija community, from which Seetharam hails, claimed the community is a deciding factor in about 40 Assembly seats. “The party’s strength in the Assembly will be halved in the next polls if the leader continues to behave the same way,” he warned.