Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge and DK Shivakumar
NEW DELHI: Congress leader and Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar on Tuesday remarked that he does not want to discuss the CM change issue “publicly,” describing it as a “secret deal” involving “four and five people” in the party. Shivakumar, who also heads the Karnataka Congress, explained that he does not want to cause any “embarrassment” to the grand old party. “I don’t know. I have not asked to be made CM. It is a secret deal between five and six of us. I don’t want to speak publicly on this. I believe in my conscience. We should work with our conscience. I don’t want to embarrass the party or weaken it. If the party is there, we are there. If ‘karyakartas’ are there, we are there,” he told reporters, according to PTI. He was visiting his home constituency, Kanakapura. “The chief minister (Siddaramaiah) has spoken. He is a senior leader, an asset for the party. He has completed 7.5 years as CM,” Shivakumar added, referring to Siddaramaiah’s earlier five-year term from 2013–2018. Asked about legislators backing him travelling to Delhi to meet the Congress high command with a demand to make him CM, Shivakumar responded that he was “unaware” of it, suggesting they might be making efforts to secure ministerial positions. “I have not telephoned or called any of them (legislators) or spoken to them. I’m not asking them why they went. I don’t need it,” he remarked. A batch of six Congress legislators supporting him had travelled to Delhi on November 23 to meet senior leaders, according to party sources, who added that a few more MLAs are likely to follow soon to push Shivakumar’s case. Last week, around ten legislators backing him had met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge with the same demand.The power tussle within the ruling party has intensified amid speculation over a leadership change, after the state government reached the halfway mark of its five-year term on November 20, following talk of a “power-sharing” agreement between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar in 2023.Mallikarjun Kharge on Karnataka power tussle Meanwhile, Kharge, too, maintained that the issue of leadership change in Karnataka is not something to be taken up in public. The veteran leader, in Delhi to attend Constitution Day celebrations on Wednesday, told reporters: “This is not a subject to be discussed here and that too in public. I have specially come to attend an event related to Constitution Day. After the event, I have review meetings, after which I will proceed further.” Siddaramaiah has repeatedly maintained that he will remain chief minister for the full five-year term and will continue to present future state budgets.
