BENGALURU: The Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar camps seem to have declared a ceasefire over the leadership tussle in the Karnataka Congress government till Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi returns from his Europe trip on January 9.
While both the leaders and their supporters may not train their guns against each other in public, the political churning would continue in the shadows.
Both camps have been chalking out strategies in anticipation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and DCM DK Shivakumar being summoned by the high command in January, according to party insiders.
The Siddaramaiah camp is keeping its fingers crossed that Rahul would give his nod for the cabinet reshuffle. Many aspirants, including chief whip in the council Saleem Ahmed and Jewargi MLA Ajay Dharam Singh, are hoping that the reshuffle will likely take place after Makar Sankranti.
As Siddaramaiah is most likely to break the record of former CM late D Devaraj Urs as the longest serving CM on Jan 6, his supporters have been gearing up to celebrate the occasion in a big way.
The Yuva AHINDA members are planning to host a feast for over 10,000 people in Bengaluru with Siddaramaiah’s favourite dish ‘nati koli’ (country chicken) curry in the menu. Senior leader and MLC B K Hariprasad, a Siddaramaiah sympathiser, is backing the Yuva AHINDA.
The Siddaramaiah camp is sure that the high command is unlikely to force him to step down.
“In the three Congress-ruled states, a backward class leader is at the helm of affairs only in Karnataka. Telangana CM Revanth Reddy and Himachal Pradesh CM Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu hail from forward castes. If it is inevitable for Siddaramaiah to step down, a leader from AHINDA should be made CM,” said a senior Congress leader. The Siddaramaiah camp is also planning to pitch Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara for the top post.
Meanwhile, Shivakumar, who has claimed that he too belongs to a backward class, is likely to exert pressure on the party high command to reward him for his contributions. He has been reiterating that there was a power-sharing pact with Siddaramaiah when the party formed the government in Karnataka in 2023. His sympathisers are likely to throng Delhi once Rahul returns from abroad, according to sources.