BENGALURU: After their humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress-JDS leaders are now trying to save the government from threats, both within and outside the coalition. The Congress is said to have dropped its initial plans to push for a change of guard.
Sources in the party said they had initially planned to push for change in leadership with Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara as CM and JDS leader H D Revanna as deputy CM. “That plan has been dropped for now as it could result in fresh trouble for the coalition. Also, there are too many aspirants for the CM’s post,” sources said.
For now, the party wants to ensure that none of its disgruntled MLAs join BJP as that will put the government in trouble. Sources said the party is aware of BJP’s attempts to entice its MLAs and senior leaders have been assigned to talk to each one of the ‘potential rebel’ legislators and hand-hold them.
“For the next few months, the BJP central leadership may not want to take any drastic step to destabilise the coalition government as it will be concerned about the fallout of such an eventuality at the national level. Now, the challenge is to protect party MLAs from switching sides,” sources said.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Congress MLA Hirekerur B C Patil took a dig at the party for neglecting Lingayat legislators and north Karnataka. Surprisingly, on Saturday, he left his gunman behind and drove in a car with some others to meet ‘Congress chief rebel’ Ramesh Jarkiholi. Patil said there is nothing wrong in him meeting Jarkiholi, but refused to divulge any details.
Patil is an aspirant for a ministerial berth in the government and BJP is said to be trying to woo him. It may be recalled that Patil was seen in Mumbai with other disgruntled legislators.Ramesh, who had earlier announced his decision to quit the party along with some more MLAs, is said to be ‘tempting’ some more rebel Congress legislators.
The BJP leaders in the state seem to be confident about the government not surviving for long. On Saturday, senior BJP leader Shobha Karandalaje said the party is ready to go for mid-term polls if the government collapses.