Ramalinga no ‘ring leader’ of rebels but ‘late entrant’

Bengaluru: Contrary to the public perception that former home minister R. Ramalinga Reddy was one of the brains behind the rebellion by Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs to resign and bring down the coalition government, sources privy to the discussion among the rebels, confided that Mr Reddy actually joined the group in the last phase and was the first to break away and withdraw his resignation.

In fact, the churning in the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) began right after the Lok Sabha election results on May 23 when the coalition partners suffered disastrous defeats forcing many of the dissidents, including S.T. Somashekhar, Bhairati Basavaraj and Munirathna, popularly known as 'SBM,' to debate on their future in the Congress.

The subsequent developments virtually forced them to conclude that there was no future if they stayed back in the  party, said sources adding that this was the time when they made up their mind to distance themselves from the Congress.

It was around this time that the Congress recommended  the induction of the two Independent MLAs  into the cabinet, much to the consternation of the SBM trio who then teamed up with other disgruntled elements in the coalition to emerge as a potent group.

Mr Ramalinga Reddy entered the scene only when Hosapete Congress MLA Anand Singh resigned on July 1. He tweeted for two consecutive days criticizing the party which made the other rebels  rally around Mr Reddy.

He remained firm on his resignation for a week making the other city MLAs claim that Mr Reddy was their leader. Sources said that Mr Reddy even held parallel discussions with BJP leaders.

But the former minister did not  go to Raj Bhavan unlike the other rebels or camp in Mumbai and this made it easy for the Congress party to mount pressure on him.

Sources close to Mr Reddy said that he did not want to go to the extent of damaging the party's interests and only wanted to bring the anger of the rebels to the notice of the leadership.

Former AICC president Sonia Gandhi sent a word through Mr Reddy's daughter and Jayanagar MLA Sowmya Reddy who met the former in Delhi after which senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and others called on him. With state leaders too making a beeline to his residence, it was only a matter of time before the loyal Congressmen agreed to withdraw his resignation and back the coalition.

Congress leaders thought they now had the upper hand as the ‘ring leader’ of the rebellion had been persuaded to back off. However, the rebels were in no mood to relent now and in a  video asserted that they had no intention of returning to Bengaluru at this juncture or back the coalition.

In fact, rebel MLA Mr Bhairati Basavaraj's words in the video released Sunday evening hit the nail on the head: “Our leaders said this government would not be allowed to continue after the parliament elections, but they went back on their word, so we took this decision.”

He, thus, virtually exposed Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, who had about a year ago after the assembly polls, reportedly said at a meeting with his loyalists that the coalition government would last only till the parliament polls.

Sources said that even Mr Reddy was shocked and surprised when the rebels  stopped communicating with him since Thursday last making it more than evident that they were  in no mood to go back now on the course of action they had chosen.