Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)
Bangalore, May 19: It is reliably learnt that Kumaraswami, state president of the JD (S), who has been nursing the ambitions of becoming a union minister, has found a thorn in the flesh in the form of his former colleague in the party and Congress leader Siddaramaiah.
It is gathered, Siddaramaiah has been making all out efforts to ensure that former chief minister of the state Kumaraswami will not be accommodated in the central cabinet. In this connection, Siddaramaiah will be visiting New Delhi on Tuesday May 19, to meet the top brass of the party and apprise them of his views on inducting Kumaraswami. It may be recalled, that Siddaramaiah has been nursing a bitter enmity against Deve Gowda and his son Kumara Swami for spurning his chances of becoming the chief minister during the Congress-JDS regime and passing derogatory remarks against him.
The purpose of Siddu's visit is said to be to convince the leaders of the fact that giving ministerial berth to Kumaraswami is neither required nor is there a dire need for the party to accommodate him. He wants to drive home the point that, the JDS which identified itself with the Third Front just before the election, which has now been making overtures to the Congress, has been only laying bare its opportunistic politics in which it has been indulging in since long. Sources said, Siddu will also be trying to convince the high command of the party that the leaders should never repose trust in Deve Gowda and Kumara Swami, who are known to hatch conspiracies to further their selfish interests, as in the case of toppling of the Congress state government led by Dharam Singh.
It is also being analyzed that the Congress top brass is rethinking on its strategies, as it requires only 11 seats to secure a clear majority in the Lok Sabha and ceding a cabinet berth just for the sake of three MPs to the JD (S) may not be a sensible proposal. As no major elections are slated to be held in Karnataka for the next four years, there is no compulsion for it to strike an alliance with the JDS as of now. Moreover, Rahul Gandhi's idea of going it alone has succeeded in this election and the party might be inclined to stick to this idea in future too.