BENGALURU: Amid the ‘widening rift’ between Opposition leader Siddaramaiah and KPCC chief D K Shivakumar, the latter has said that this was only a “political strategy” of the party. “There is no meeting (rift). Nothing… It’s a political strategy which we have adopted,” the Karnataka Congress chief said while addressing a press conference here on Thursday.
The Congress is gearing up for the 2023 polls in the state with a 75-day mega campaign after the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. The campaign will cover all 224 constituencies starting from the first week of January.
In an apparent attempt to show unity in the party’s state unit, both leaders had participated in the Karnataka leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is being led by Rahul Gandhi.
Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have been reported to be in a slugfest over the candidature of the next chief minister from the party.
Shivakumar also accused the ruling BJP of having “no high command” in the party and said, “There is a big rift in the BJP. You know the statements of some of their leaders and CM’s political secretary. There is no high command; high command has no control. B S Yediyurappa also; a lot of things are going on. It is boiling, I do not know when it will explode.”
The Congress has been alleging that BJP is trying to finish off Yediyurappa politically. In reply to this, the former Chief Minister on Thursday said that the party is not neglecting him. Before leaving for the inauguration of the district BJP office at Koppal, he said, “The party is not neglecting me. But one has to invite me to attend a public gathering”.
In response to the allegation that there is a conspiracy in BJP to finish him off politically, Yediyurappa claimed, “There’s no truth in it.” The speculation rose as Yediyurappa was not supposedly not invited to attend the event at Koppal initially.
Dismissing any discord with the CM or the party leadership, Yediyurappa said, “We are all in this together. We are united. We have only one agenda, elections. It is to bring the party to power. I will put all the effort needed for it. I travel across the state. There is a pro-BJP atmosphere in the state. Under the leadership of PM Modi and Amit Shah, and J P Nadda, many programmes have taken place in the state.” (ANI)