BENGALURU: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief D K Shivakumar on Monday met with supporters, who gathered outside his residence in Bengaluru to greet him on his birthday. Scores of Congress supporters waited for hours with cakes to wish the Congress leader who is a contender for Karnataka’s Chief Minister’s post.
Shivakumar was garlanded with flowers and given flower bouquets before he proceeded to the Shagri-La hotel in Bengaluru for a meeting of the Congress legislature party meeting.
“I am celebrating the birthday of Shivakumar for 20 years. I am his close aide. Every year the cake is sported with a message that you are the future CM,” said Shamsher Beig, who also waited for hours to wish his favourite leader. He said it is very necessary for Shivakumar to be appointed as the Chief Minister to fulfill the poll promises, mentioned in Congress’ manifesto. “The youth, Congress party and everyone wants Shivakumar to be appointed as our Chief Minister”, he said.
After Congress’ impressive victory in the southern state which it won the Assembly elections with 135 votes, both state chief DK Shivakumar and senior leader Siddaramaiah are reportedly eyeing the post of chief minister. Congress leader and All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, on Sunday late night said that party chief Mallikarjun Kharge will not take long and announce the name of next chief minister of Karnataka soon.
Speaking to reporters after a late-night meeting of newly elected Congress MLAs in Karnataka’s Bengaluru, Surjewala said, “Party leadership will take a decision. I can’t replace my judgement with Kharge sahab’s judgement. He is our senior, and as you all know him. He is the son of the soil of Karnataka, and I’m sure he will not take very long.”
“The victory party will be in the first cabinet when we will implement our first five guarantees,” he said while responding to a query on plans for the oath-taking ceremony after the decision on the new CM of Karnataka.
The meeting was convened after the CLP unanimously passed a resolution authorising party president Mallikarjun Kharge to pick the name of the Karnataka Chief Minister. “The Congress legislature party unanimously resolves that AICC president is hereby authorised to appoint the new leader of the Congress Legislature Party,” the resolution stated.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and party leaders Jitendra Singh and Deepak Babaria were present in the meeting as observers. Party leaders like Siddaramaiah, D K Shivakumar, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh and others also attended the meeting.
“Entire process of meeting individual legislators of Congress party has been completed with great bohemia. The observers met all the MLAs separately and recorded their views and now they will submit a report to the Congress leadership and after that, we will announce the next leader of the Congress Legislature Party,” AICC in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala further told reporters.
When asked if there were any gifts being planned for Siddaramaiah or DK Shivakumar on the latter’s birthday, Surjewala said, “I am not a party to those discussions as general secretary. I’m a simple worker to Congress who stood with all my legislators. We were sitting together and planning the future of Karnataka which is more important to us. We also celebrated D K Shivakumar’s birthday together.” (ANI)