BENGALURU: As the plot to pull down the Kamal Nath government was taking the final shape at plush resorts on Bengaluru’s outskirts, the Congress central leadership made a last-ditch attempt to salvage the situation by roping in local party leaders. Not surprisingly, none showed any interest, though the Madhya Pradesh political drama was unfolding right under the noses in their own backyard, that too hurting their own party’s fortunes in that state.
Sources in the party said that AICC General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka KC Venugopal called former CM Siddaramaiah, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao, former deputy CM G Parameshwara and former minister DK Shivakumar on Monday evening requesting them to contact the MLAs from MP camping in Bengaluru. But none of them reportedly showed interest in taking up the assignment, said sources.
While Siddaramaiah and Gundu Rao are said to have expressed their inability to reach out to the MP rebel Congress MLAs, who were with BJP leaders, Shivakumar’s response, too, seemed languid.
A senior state Congress leader said that they had little role to play as central and MP Congress leaders were directly coordinating to defuse the crisis.
In 2017, Shivakumar had played host to Congress MLAs from Gujarat to ensure Ahmed Patel’s election to the Rajya Sabha. Again, in 2018, he took legislators to a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru to save the JDS-Congress coalition government.
“This time around, he was not keen to take responsibility. Everyone knows what happened after he helped the party in the 2017 RS elections. He is now embroiled in a number of cases, including those from Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate,” party sources said.
Shivakumar is the frontrunner for the state party president post. Siddaramaiah and Gundu Rao resigned from their posts after the party’s humiliating defeat in December 2019 by-polls. The central leaders’ failure to decide on the resignations and appoint new a KPCC chief seems to have worked against its efforts to enlist support from the faction-ridden state unit. There is a lot of uncertainty in the state unit, which has almost been rendered dysfunctional.
In fact, during his recent meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Gundu Rao urged him to take a decision on appointing KPCC chief as uncertainty was impacting party work.
Lack of enthusiasm and absence of a clear chain of command, too, were the factors for the local unit not making any effort to reach out to the MP MLAs. Initially, some Congress leaders tried to find out where they were camping, but did not follow it up, sources said.
KPCC Working President Eshwar Khandre termed it an attempt by BJP state and central leaders to destabilise the Congress government in MP. “It is a repeat of what they did in Karnataka. The MLAs were kept in captivity and it was difficult to reach them,” he said.