Mission Mumbai: Dinesh Gundu Rao, Eshwar Khandre fail to convince rebel legislators

Bengaluru: If it was D.K.Shivakumar last week, it was Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, Dinesh Gundu Rao on Saturday. Along with KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre. All, on separate missions to woo the recalcritant MLAs back home.

A day after the Governor invited BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa to be sworn in and face a trust vote, the beleaguered Congress party which can see the writing on the wall, made a last ditch effort to woo back the dissidents. But met with little success.

KPCC president, Dinesh Gundu Rao flew into Mumbai on Saturday, with his office saying he was on a personal visit.

Similarly, Mr Khandre arrived in Pune on an unscheduled visit to Mumbai.

High level sources have told this newspaper that both the leaders reportedly tried to reach out to the dissident MLAs, but the dissidents did not answer the calls that the two leaders made. In fact, to avoid the media glare, the two leaders did proffer different reasons on why they were heading to Mumbai and Pune, and took different routes after landing in these cities.