Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah is set to go to New Delhi on Monday to meet the party’s central leaders, including former president and MP Rahul Gandhi.
The former Chief Minister’s Delhi visit assumed significance in the wake of fissures within the State Congress over the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the next Assembly elections, with one faction favouring Mr. Siddaramaiah and the other backing Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar.
Sources said Mr. Siddaramaiah would leave on Monday and meet Mr. Gandhi and other central leaders of the party on Tuesday. He is expected to inform the party high command that he has not projected his name for the Chief Minister’s post and some MLAs have merely expressed their personal views on the matter.
Mr. Shivakumar too is expected to visit Delhi in the next few days to meet the party’s central leaders, sources said. The issue of the party’s next chief ministerial candidate was always unlikely to die down, and on Saturday party workers welcomed Mr. Shivakumar in Kalaburagi by shouting slogans labelling him the party’s “next Chief Minister”.
Mr. Shivakumar had met Mr. Gandhi and Randeep Singh Surjewala, All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Karnataka, last month in Delhi and apparently informed the central leaders about factions within the party. Mr. Surjewala then issued a statement warning leaders to avoid making comments projecting the party’s next CM nominee.
