Siddaramaiah musters state unit backing for LoP in Karnataka assembly

Congress central leader Madhusudan Mistry’s meeting with state unit leaders turned into a show of support for Congress Legislature Party chief Siddaramaiah as a majority of leaders here rallied behind him as their choice for the Leader of Opposition in the House.

Mistry held one-on-one meetings with MLAs, MLCs and senior leaders here on Sunday to ascertain the opinion of the state leaders before the party takes a call on the vacant LoP position ahead of the state assembly’s winter session that begins on Thursday.

One Congress leader confirmed that all state unit estimates put former chief minister Siddaramaiah’s support base at 57 MLAs out of 66 and 30 out of 38 MLCs.

This overwhelming support comes in the wake of attacks against Siddaramaiah from the Janata Dal (Secular), and especially former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, who have both accused him of conspiring to topple the Congress-JD(S) coalition government.

In fact, some leaders in the state had misgivings about Siddaramaiah after the coalition fell as some of the 17 rebel MLAs, who resigned and who were subsequently disqualified by former assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, were close aides of the former chief minister.

Multiple leaders HT reached out to confirmed that Siddaramaiah had their support at the moment. Two Congress MLAs, who were ministers in both the Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy governments, said there was no real alternative at present.

“Now is the time to corner the BJP government, which has failed, and only one leader in the state can take them head on at the moment, which is Siddaramaiah,” one of the ministers mentioned above said.

To be sure, the former chief minister has his share of detractors within the party, as was apparent last month when former MP KH Muniyappa and Siddaramaiah got into a verbal argument in the presence of AICC general secretary KC Venugopal at a party meeting.

However, such was the support for Siddaramaiah that his challenger, senior MLA HK Patil, was left with very few supporters. One senior leader said that the situation might have been different if former minister DK Shivakumar had not been in the Enforcement Directorate’s custody over a money laundering case. “Even then, the majority might have stuck with Siddaramaiah, but it might have been a closer run race than this,” the leader added.

State leaders expect a decision on this by Tuesday, as the party will also have to take a call on the party’s leader in the state’s upper house and the whip.