Congress may not declare CM face for Karnataka elections

Siddaramaiah

The opposition Congress has resolved to fight the Karnataka assembly elections, to be held next year, collectively but is unlikely to announce a chief ministerial candidate.

Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar and Congress legislature party leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah and others meet senior party leaders at the residence of former party chief Rahul Gandhi in Delhi recently to draw up the poll strategy.

The Congress, reports said, would focus on “Kannada pride” to take on the BJP’s Hindutva push. The party would contest the elections on the plank of “Kannadiga pride” against the BJP’s effort to indirectly impose Hindi on the state, The Hindu reported Siddaramaiah as saying.

The BJP government was seeking to indirectly impose Hindi and Hindutva on Karnataka, he alleged. If the Congress is voted to power, it will reserve class III and IV government jobs for Kannadigas, he said.

Siddaramaiah as well as Shivakumar fancy their chances of being the CM candidate and have a long-running rivalry. Siddaramaiah denied reports that the Delhi meeting was called to resolve the differences between the two leaders.

“There are no differences between me and Mr Shivakumar. The meeting was only to deliberate up on our strategy ahead for the Assembly elections. A united Congress will fight the polls,” The Hindu quoted Siddaramaiah as saying.

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According to news agency ANI, one of the factions of state leadership wants the party should not announce a chief ministerial candidate and should go to polls with the “collective leadership”.

Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar fancy their chances of being the CM candidate and have for long been rivals.

Recently, the ruling BJP won three Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka, the Congress got one seat and the Janata Dal-Secular drew a blank.

While senior party leader Jairam Ramesh was elected to the upper house, the second Congress candidate lost the election.