Terming Chief Minister Siddaramaiah a “caged tiger”, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader D V Sadananda Gowda said on Sunday that the rift in the Congress party in the state was reaching a “point of no return”.
Interacting with reporters on the sidelines of the Kuvempu Kalaniketan Award here, the former chief minister said that the co-ordination committee being set up for better communication between the Congress and the government was just a move to shackle Siddaramaiah.
“I told him during swearing-in to be careful since, once he accepts such rules, he will not be able to get out. Now this move (co-ordination committee) is an attempt to rein in him.
“All the decisions by him as the Chief Minister will have to be approved by the party. We felt from the beginning that this would be a big curtailment of his powers,” Gowda said.
Terming the rift in the Congress as “serious”, Gowda added that the differences were visible from the time the Congress came to power. “They blamed us for infighting. We at least managed to stick together for so many years. They have developed irreparable differences within three months. The Budget did not have any allocation for State Congress president G Parameshwara’s constituency. We can clearly see the fallout now,” the former chief minister said.