Kumaraswamy threatens to quit as CM, says Congress MLAs ‘crossing the line’

In order to prevent the BJP from coming to power in Karnataka, Congress and JD(S) formed a post-poll alliance despite sharing an acrimonious relationship in the past. There is always a tug of war between the two rivals who share a bitter relationship. From day one, there has been massive power tussle in the Congress-JD(S) alliance. After one coalition drama gets over another drama begins without interval. Now, a controversy has erupted with the incumbent CM threatening to “step down”. His statement comes after Congress MLAs hailed former CM Siddaramaiah and called him as their leader.

Responding to this an angry Kumaraswamy said, “Congress leaders have to watch all that issues, I’m not the concerned person for it. If they want to continue with it, I’m ready to step down. They’re crossing line…Congress leaders must control their MLAs.”

Earlier, the Congress minister C Puttaranga Shetty hailed Siddaramaiah and went to the extent of saying that he still considers his leader the CM. He said, “Whatever you say, only Siddaramaiah is my chief minster… I cannot imagine anybody else in that position.”

One of the Congress MLAs, Somashekhar, even attacked the coalition government. According to a Times of India report, he said, “It is seven months since the coalition government came to power, but development work has not yet taken off.” He went on to add, “Had Siddaramaiah got another five-year term, we would have seen real development.” Siddaramaiah had also endorsed comments of his admirer.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, G Parameshwara, defended Congress MLAs who said Siddaramaiah is their leader. He said, “Siddaramaiah has been best CM. He is our CLP leader. For the MLA, he (Siddaramaiah) is the CM. He has expressed his opinion. What is wrong in that? We are all happy with him (Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy).”

The JD(S) President, HD Deve Gowda’s opinion is also similar to that of G Parameshwara. Just like Deputy CM, Gowda also tried to downplay the issue. According to a Times of India report, Gowda said that difference of opinion is natural in coalition politics and he would not pay attention to it. He said, “I choose not to react to this. These things happen when you are in coalition politics.”

However, Gowda’s CM son doesn’t agree with him as it is clearly evident from his statement where he went to extent of threatening to resign.

It seems that Siddaramaiah is not ready to give up as he never leaves an opportunity to lambast and demean Kumaraswamy with whom and his father he shares an acrimonious relation. It seems Siddaramaiah’s war on Kumaraswamy is far from over as he is directly attacking the incumbent CM over ‘lack of development in the state’. Earlier also he had attacked Kumaraswamy on many occasions. In June last year, in a video footage released by a news channel, Siddaramaiah was seen objecting over the new budget.

For more details: Discontent in Congress-JD(S): Siddaramaiah objects to a new budget passed by Kumaraswamy

Siddaramaiah has never been happy about being sidelined by the party. However, for the past few months, he was at least quiet. Not so much now. It seems that after the recent crisis in the alliance, he is looking to consolidate his own power and Kumaraswamy seems to be the easy target for doing this because even other Congress leaders are also not happy with the incumbent CM. What this means for the alliance itself, remains to be seen.