Kharge Elected CLP Leader : Siddu Unhappy
DHNS / Daijiworld Media Network
Bangalore, May 29: The discontent among Congress workers over the partys debacle in the Assembly elections took an ugly turn on Wednesday, after KPCC president Mallikarjun Kharge was elected the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader.
Sections of Congress-men clashed with each other at the KPCC office. The bursting of crackers by Kharge’s supporters following his election as the CLP leader sparked off the clashes.
Soon after Kharge and other senior leaders left the party office, some of his supporters started bursting crackers. This irked some workers who were unhappy with the party’s poor show in the elections as well as Kharge’s selection. They attacked Kharge’s supporters and beat them black and blue. A cameraman of a news channel was also attacked by the workers. Police intervened and brought the situation under control.
Siddu unhappy
Earlier unhappy over the selection of Kharge as CLP leader, senior leader and strong contender for the post, Siddaramaiah, boy-cotted a media briefing by AICC observers Prithviraj Chavan and Digvijay Singh.
Even though an emissary was sent by Chavan to persuade Siddaramaiah to attend the briefing, the latter kept off.
The briefing was attended among others by Kharge, K H Muniyappa, H K Patil and D K Shivakumar.
Chavan said that Kharge had called on Sonia on Tuesday and tendered his resignation from the KPCC President’s post. “The resignation has been accepted, but Kharge has been asked to continue in post till alternative arrangements are made,” Chavan said, adding that the KPCC chief’s post would be filled soon after consultations with the leaders.
Chavan claimed that while Siddaramaiah proposed Kharge’s name for CLP leader’s post, Shivakumar seconded it.
The briefing was held in the evening after a daylong consultation exercise with individual MLAs was completed. The Central observers are said to have given a chit to each legislator to indicate the name of a leader who would be suitable for CLP leader’s post.
Selection drill
After consolidating the opinions, the observers are said to have selected Kharge for the post. Besides Siddaramaiah, Dr G Parameshwar, Shivakumar and V Somanna were in the race. The details regarding the support enjoyed by each contender were not known as barring the two observers no other leader took part in the exercise.
As soon as the CLP meeting commenced around 11 am, Kharge, Muniyappa, Patil and Parameshwar are learnt to have favoured passing a one line resolution, in keeping with the party tradition, authorising the high command to take the decision.
Some of the leaders, especially Kharge, are said to have expressed the view that if the election was held for the post, it would create a rift in the party which is not advisable when it is due to face the Lok Sabha elections in a few months.
But the observers are said to have expressed the view that AICC President Sonia Gandhi was against any such action and she had directed them to ascertain the opinions of MLAs before selecting a leader. Following this, all legislators were sent out of the hall and were called in one by one to indicate their preference. Chavan later said that the meeting did not deliberate upon the party’s “debacle” in the just concluded elections. “This meeting was not called to introspect. We are working out a mechanism to assess district-wise reasons for the failure of the party do well,” he added. On Somanna’s allegation that Chavan himself was responsible for the debacle, the observer said that he had taken note of the statement and the State unit would issue necessary clarification.
‘KHARGE SOLD TICKETS’
Accusing KPCC President Mallikarjun Kharge of selling away tickets through brokers, AICC member V Shankar on Wednesday appealed to AICC President Sonia Gandhi to order an inquiry into the “wrong” selection of candidates leading to party’s debacle at the hustings.
In a letter to Sonia Gandhi, copies of which were released to the press, Shankar has contended that had right candidates been selected, the party could have won more than 125 seats as against 80 won now. Shankar has also charged Kharge, who was aspiring to become Chief Minister, with defeating some senior leaders of the party.
He has also charged that due to “jealousy”, Kharge did not utilise the service of senior leaders like Siddaramaiah, S M Krishna and C K Jaffer Sharief during campaigning.
“I request you to accept the resignation of Kharge. I also request you to direct all the heavyweights who are responsible for the party’s downfall to retire from public life and appoint young leaders to head the party,” Shankar has stated in the letter.