Bangalore: Congress in Deep Trouble - Many MLAs Skip CLP Meeting
SOM / Daijiworld Media Network
Bangalore, July 10: The Congress plunged into a deep crisis today with most of the MLAs and MLCs including the supporters of former Dy. Chief Minister Siddharamaiah boycotting the crucial meeting of Congress Legislature Party (CLP).
CLP leader and KPCC President Mallikarjun Kharge had called the meeting at KPCC office at 11 am.
Kharge had called the meeting under instructions from the party supremo Sonia Gandhi to discuss the very important issue of defections of party MLAs to BJP.
Kharge and other leaders were shocked over the thin attendance of legislators at the meeting.
Of the 77 MLAs of Congress, hardly 40 turned up for the meeting. Only three out of seven Members of Parliament (MPs) were present.
Though there are 130 members in the CLP including MLAs, MLCs and MPs, only about 80 members attended the meeting.v
Followers of Siddharamaiah as well as many MLAs stayed away from the meeting. Though many of them were very much in Bangalore, they did not bother to attend amidst speculations that many more would defect to the BJP.
Significantly, even many among the MLAs from Mysore and Chamarajanagar districts, did not show up for the meeting.
V. Somanna and B.C. Patil are among the absentees.
The Congress, which had not witnessed such a turmoil after Devaraj Urs regime, seemed to be a divided house.
DKS angry
Talking to the media persons, former Minister D.K. Shivakumar spit fire against those who did not turn up for the meeting.
He dubbed them as 'cowards' saying that they were hiding else where though in Bangalore.
"They should not play politics like cowards. They should come out and fight. Such cowards would not survive in politics," he remarked.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have taken Kharge to task following information about the thin attendance.