Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)
Bengaluru, Aug 3: The state Congress, which was in a belligerent mood and wanted to floor the BJP through strategic moves, itself turned victim of the strategic masterstroke of the union government. Although income tax officials have been stressing that raid on power minister D K Shivakumar's properties had been planned months in advance and resort politics has nothing to do with it, many are not prepared to buy this story.
Congress party which was riding on high waves it created by raising the issue of having separate flag for the state and supporting the notion of announcement of Lingayatism as a separate religion, with an eye on next year's assembly election and planning to corner a big chunk of votes, suddenly finds itself in an awkward position.The raid directed at influential and energetic minister, D K Shivakumar, his various offices and properties as well as Shivakumar's father-in-law at Mysuru apparently have unnerved a number of state ministers.
There had been indications that raids by enforcement directorate and income tax department might target a few influential ministers in Siddaramaiah cabinet since the last three to four months. Some minsters, who had indications that they might be in the firing line, had preferred to maintain a low profile to avoid confrontation. The current raid has happened at a time when these ministers were feeling easy as no such raids ever happened.
Ahmed Patel, who has for long been involved with the Congress high command, sought help from Karnataka where his party is in power, to keep Congress flock together, to enable him to become Rajya Sabha member again. Siddaramaiah, who was approached with the task of keeping the MLAs together at a place, contacted a few influential minsters. However, it is said that these ministers, who had the inkling about the upcoming raid, did not show interest to take over this responsibility, it is said. Some media reports had mentioned earlier about the unpreparedness of ministers to host Gujarat MLAs.
Thereafter, Shivakumar, who was away from the country at the time, and his brother, Suresh, who is a Lok Sabha member, took over the responsibility. Shivakumar returned to India in a hurry. Shivakumar apparently wanted to assert his stamp of eminence by getting involved with such operations, but the current IT raid seems to have delivered a deadly blow to his calculations. This development it is said, has discouraged some senior ministers in the cabinet from taking on central government head on.
On Wednesday, Congress activists held protests against the IT raids at various places. When protesters shouted slogans against the raid opposite to his office, Shivakumar, who was huddled with IT officials, came out at around 1 pm,waved at the people and signalled them to remain quiet.
BJP, it appears, wanted to kill two birds with a single raid, one of which is to deprive Ahmed Patel of Rajya Sabha seat, taking into consideration the fact that he has been nagging Amit Shah since a decade, towards weakening Sohia Gandhi's leadership, and teaching a lesson to powerful man Shivakumar and thereby creating loss of face for Karnataka government.