BENGALURU: Amid a tussle over change in leadership, camps of CM Siddaramaiah and DCM DK Shivakumar are set to face off in the elections to the president’s post of the Karnataka State Cooperative Apex Bank Ltd. The trigger is former cooperation minister KN Rajanna filing his nomination papers on Monday for the president’s post.
Being a close aide of Siddaramaiah, Rajanna’s entry is being interpreted as a counter to Shivakumar, who wanted to make his brother-in-law and MLC S Ravi the president.
Rajanna, after being removed as minister, continued his grip over the cooperative sector. He has already been a president twice of the 110-year-old Apex Bank... from October 2001 to April 2005 and August 2015 to September, 2020. He is now the president of Tumakuru District Central Cooperative (DCC) bank and has been delegated as nominee to the Apex Bank, while Ravi is coming from the Bengaluru DCC bank. Eighteen
DCC banks across the state have delegated their nominees and the Mysore-Chamarajanagar bank is also expected to do it soon. The elections, a formality, will be held on January 23 for their confirmation as directors. Two weeks later, elections will be held for the president’s post.
Sources said that Siddaramaiah and Rajanna had given a word to Shivakumar to make Ravi the bank president. But the scenario has changed with Rajanna losing his cabinet berth and wanting to prove his mettle. It is to be seen if Ravi contests for the president’s post or settles for the vice-president if a deal is struck between the two camps. In an attempt to break ice, Shivakumar recently met Rajanna and held discussions.
In the, Rajanna has an upper hand as he is backed by delegated nominees from different DCC banks from across the state cutting across party lines. In all, 19 directors will vote to choose the president.
Former minister HD Revanna’s MLC son Suraj R, a delegate from Hassan, too may back Rajanna to settle scores with Shivakumar, a source said. Ministers D Sudhakar(Chitradurga), Shivananda S Patil (Vijayapura), Karnataka State Pollution Control Board chairman PM Narendraswamy (Mandya), former minister Shivarama Mahabaleshwara Hebbar (Uttara Kannada), Belli Prakash (Chikkamagaluru), who held the president post previously, and PWD minister Satish Jarkiholi’s son Rahul Jarkiholi (Belagavi) are likely to support Rajanna.
DCC banks of Bagalkot and Kolar could not delegate their nominees due to legal hurdles. But Mysuru and Chamarajanagar are likely to delegate one.