Bengaluru: The chorus for another term at the helm for CLP leader Siddaramaiah was a calculated move by the Kuruba strongman's camp-followers to keep Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy under check.
Home minister, M.B. Patil, Chikkaballapur legislator Dr K. Sudhakar and many other Congress MLAs expressed their views that Mr Siddaramaiah should get another term as Chief Minister as he has the potential to lead the state. Mr Siddaramaiah, however, silenced them saying the CM's post was not vacant so the question of him taking over as CM would not arise.
Sources in the state government said when Mr Kumaraswamy vetoed suggestions of Mr Siddaramaiah and transferred two senior officials from plum posts, the latter was livid and within a week, this campaign was launched. To make matters worse, Mr Kumaraswamy went ahead and posted out officials from the city much to the chagrin of some ministers and several Congress legislators. The upshot: Congress legislators launched the "Siddaramaiah-for-CM" campaign despite knowing well that central leaders would not heed their pleas till completion of counting of votes polled in Lok Sabha elections.
Sources said earlier too Mr Kumaraswamy had rubbed leaders of Congress the wrong way. The JD (S) leader knew that he was indispensible and therefore took decisions, antagonizing these Congress leaders. Recently, four JD (S) legislators went to meet Mr Kumaraswamy at a hotel. However, the chief minister reportedly made them to wait for four hours and finally, they returned empty handed, sources said adding that more JD (S) legislators were disillusioned with Mr Kumaraswamy's style of functioning.
