NEW DELHI: Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar on Friday said that he will travel to Delhi to meet the high command over the “power tussle” between him and Siddaramaiah regarding the chief ministerial post.DKS said that he, along with chief minister Siddaramaiah, will travel to Delhi and the high command will make a decision over the anticipated reshuffle of the government.
“I will definitely go to Delhi. It is our temple. Congress has a long history, and Delhi will always guide us. When they call me, party leaders and the CM, we will go there,” Shivakumar said.“My community is the Congress. I may belong to one community, and they may like it, but my love is for all sections of society… I don’t want anything; my party will make the decision,” he added.This comes as speculations over a change of guard in Karnataka grew as soon as the Congress government completed its halfway mark on November 20. Reports quoting Congress sources suggested that MLAs and MLCs from Shivakumar’s faction had camped in Delhi to push the party high command to make him the next chief minister.DK Shivakumar added to the speculations after he claimed that there had indeed been “a confidential understanding on leadership transition among five-six leaders” soon after Congress won a landslide in the 2023 elections. The deputy chief minister made the first reference to the power pact but stopped short of divulging more details. “This is confidential. I don’t want to speak publicly on this,” he said.However, the Congress chief played down the “internal conflict” within the party and said that the “high command” will sit together and deliberate on the issue.“Only the people there can say what the government is doing. But I would like to say that we will resolve such issues,” Kharge had said.“People in the high command — Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and I — will sit together and deliberate on this… We will give the medicine when required,” he added.This was the first acknowledgment by Kharge that there is indeed a power struggle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar in Karnataka.Meanwhile, Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge also said that the Congress high command possesses the sense of timing to resolve the intensifying “power tussle” between chief minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar.Speaking to reporters, the minister said Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have agreed to travel to Delhi for a meeting when summoned by the party high command.“Nobody has given any official invitation or statement on the meeting in New Delhi. The CM and the deputy CM have said that they will go to Delhi if they are invited by the Congress president or AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge Randeep Singh Surjewala. Let the invitation come from Delhi, then only it will be decided,” Kharge, who is Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son, said.Asked about the increasing confusion, Kharge said, “The high command has the sense of timing. It will take a call, keeping in mind the right time.” He urged people not to speculate further and said the high command will intervene whenever necessary.As the Congress government in Karnataka completed the halfway mark of its five-year tenure on November 20, the power tussle within the party has intensified over a possible change of guard in the state, with a section claiming an alleged “power-sharing” agreement between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar in 2023.
