Bengaluru: Taking an indirect swipe at Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah's social media pages and accounts, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, Dr G. Parameshwar on Wednesday quipped that the Congress party has a long tradition of selecting its Chief Minister only after the poll results.
Speaking to reporters here, Dr Parameshwar said, "What’s wrong if anyone declares himself or herself as the Chief Minister candidate? Someone who is enthusiastic, might have launched various pages claiming that Siddaramaiah would be the next CM, but Mr Siddaramaiah is aware of the Congress tradition on how the CM is elected after the poll results."
According to him, the Congress traditionally believes in the collective leadership concept and the 2018 Assembly polls too would be fought under a collective leadership. "Announcements on websites do not carry much weight in the party. In the Congress, only AICC president, Sonia Gandhi and AICC vice-president, Rahul Gandhi are vested with the power to announce the CM ahead of polls. That happened in the case of the present Punjab Chief Minister, Capt. Amrinder Singh, his name was announced by none other than Mr Gandhi ahead of polls and not on a website or social media page," he retorted in response to a question.
He further insisted that wherever the party is in power, it faces polls under the joint leadership of the PCC president and the respective Chief Minister who are “joint commanders” facing the polls.
Earlier, Dr Parameshwar held a series of meetings with ruling party corporators in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike(BBMP), where he emphasised that the corporators should work in their respective wards. "Elections to the Legislative Assembly are due in just about six months, corporators should not take it lightly they should instead work round the clock in their respective wards and be active on social media channels to counter the BJP’s malicious campaign against us. Corporators need to be constantly in touch with the Bengaluru district in-charge minister K.J. George, to set right problems," he instructed them.
