Bengaluru: He was often described as the saviour of the Congress but outgoing minister D.K. Shivakumar’s hectic efforts to save the coalition government, earned him more brickbats than bouquets from within the party this time and may have stalled his objective of emerging as the successor of former PM Deve Gowda in the Vokkaliga belt, at least for now.
In the last 20 days, Mr Shivakumar made many attempts-he landed at the Speaker's chamber the day the 13 MLAs resigned and tried to convince the dissidents to withdraw their resignations but failed. He visited rebel, MTB Nagaraj's residence and thereafter landed in Mumbai to meet the dissidents but again failed.
Sources in the Congress said Mr Shivakumar did not obtain permission from any top leaders in Delhi or Bengaluru and himself volunteered to do all the hard work for the party. "Any leader who wants to save the government should operate very secretly. One should not do it before the camera," a senior leader said adding that Mr Shivakumar's penchant to publicise his work boomeranged.
The Congress leader, who always wanted to become the champion of Vokkaligas, wanted to drive home a point that in spite of having differences with CM H.D. Kumaraswamy, he worked tirelessly to save the government led by a Vokkaliga. However, according to sources, his conduct during the crisis and the strategy he worked out, proved counterproductive damaging his own image and that of the Congress too.
