Bengaluru, May 29
As the Lok Sabha election debacle pushed the ruling coalition in Karnataka into a greater turmoil, the Congress today went into an overdrive to avert a potential existential crisis to the one-year-old HD Kumaraswamy ministry.
Rushed here by the party high command on a damage control mission, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal met Kumaraswamy, senior party leaders and ministers and attended a legislature party meeting to save the coalition from an intensified BJP onslaught.
CLP leader and Congress-JD(S) coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah said no one would leave the Congress and there was no disgruntlement either. "All of us are together. This government is strong and will survive. If BJP tries to destabilise the government, they will be biggest fools," he told reporters after the CLP meeting, attended by 72 Congress MLAs, with two rebels Ramesh Jarkiholi and R Roshan Baig giving it a miss.
Two other missing lawmakers — Ramalinga Reddy and Byrati Basavaraj — had obtained permission not to attend the meet. Jarkiholi has been hobnobbing with the BJP leaders, indicating that he may jump the ship, while Baig has been ridiculing the party leadership and praising PM Narendra Modi, leaving Congress red-faced.
KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao said senior leaders and ministers would meet on Thursday to discuss cabinet expansion, a solution that has been proposed to quell snowballing dissent. A joint legislature party meeting of the Congress and JD(S) would be held soon, he added.
Venugopal also met several Congress ministers in the coalition government and discussed alleged threat to the coalition from the BJP. — PTI
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2wtog4s
via Today’s News Headlines
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