Bengaluru: Friends-turned-foes of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, led by former minister N Cheluvarayaswamy, continued to defy a diktat from top Congress leaders to campaign for Nikhil Kumaraswamy in Mandya Lok Sabha constituency.
“Kalaha Tasmai Namaha’ (time will decide everything)” was how Mr Cheluvarayaswamy summed up their stand to Deccan Chronicle when asked whether these former legislators, miffed with Mr Kumaraswamy for describing them as “back stabbers”, would drum up support for independent candidate Mrs Sumalatha Ambareesh.
Mr Cheluvarayaswamy said meetings with former CM Siddaramaiah were continuing but did not yield desired results. “I am still in the process of consulting my party workers seeking their suggestion whether I should campaign for the coalition candidate and so far nothing has been decided. People are my bosses, and I cannot defy them,” he added. Though Mr Siddaramaiah held several rounds of discussions with defeated Congress legislators of Mandya district in an effort to patch up differences between them and the Chief Minister, the former have remained firm in their stand as they are also angry that they were not taken into confidence before Mr Kumaraswamy took a decision to field his son as JD (S) candidate. With the prospect of this standoff likely to impact the outcome of polls in other constituencies including Mysuru-Kodagu where Mr Siddaramaiah’s lieutenant Mr C H Vijayshankar, a former BJP MP, is the Congress candidate.
Sources in Congress said Mr Siddaramaiah had promised to arrange a meeting between these former legislators and the Chief Minister but the latter preferred to talk to KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and food and civil supplies minister Zameer Ahmed Khan. The upshot: both parties are at loggerheads with less than a week to go for campaigning to draw to an end in this politically volatile constituency.
