Bangalore: On Wednesday, the standoff over who will become the next chief minister of Karnataka entered its fourth day, with both Siddaramaiah and state Congress president D.K. Shivakumar refusing to accept anything less than the desired position.
The top brass of the Congress is optimistic that a solution would be discovered during a meeting on Wednesday in New Delhi.
According to party sources, senior leader Rahul Gandhi and AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge would interact with Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah.
As per sources cited by Shivakumar, the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities have supported the Congress for almost 25 years as a result of him, and if he were not appointed chief minister, the party would lose their backing. He flatly refused to collaborate with Siddaramaiah and refused to take the position of Deputy Chief Minister.
Shivakumar informed Kharge that he would refrain from anti-party activities and instead continue to serve as an MLA. In addition, he assured him that Kharge would have his entire backing if he were to take office as Chief Minister.
Siddaramaiah, on the other side, is using Shivakumar's criminal charges and suggesting that if the latter is named Chief Minister, the BJP will use it to attack the Congress at the federal level. Siddaramaiah emphasised that he was the leader of the Ahinda vote bank, which helped the Congress win.
Congress will lose the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 if he is not appointed Chief Minister. Shivakumar said, Siddaramaiah cannot claim the votes of the Dalits and other minorities because they have always supported the Congress.
As per the reports, Kharge is also to blame for the Congress party's increased support from the underprivileged classes.When Shivakumar was singled out and imprisoned by the BJP for supporting the Congress party, he stood up for that party admirably. The claims are being carefully considered by the senior command.
The Congress leadership is concerned about anything going wrong because it wants to use Karnataka as a platform to address the nation.
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