Mandya rebel Congress netas in no mood to relent

Bengaluru, 08 Apr 2019 [Fik/News Sources]: Talks between senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah and the seven miffed former Congress legislators over supporting Janata Dal  (Secular) candidate Nikhil Kumaraswamy in the Mandya Lok Sabha seat, have failed as the ex-MLAs stuck to their stand.

With no option left, Mr Siddaramaiah has promised another round of discussion to make them to work for the JD(S) candidate which will be held here on Monday. But the former legislators who include Cheluvarayaswamy and Ramesh Bandisiddegowda, have told the former CM that another meeting was not required now since they had to discuss the outcome of Sunday's meeting with supporters in their respective constituencies. This has put a big question mark over Monday’s meeting. An ex-MLA who attended the meeting told Deccan Chronicle that Mr Kumaraswamy had no confidence in them ever since they quit the JD(S) and joined the Congress party. His confidence had hit the roof after the JD(S) won all the seven assembly seats in Mandya district. The CM’s confidence further increased after his party nominee L.R. Shivaramegowda won the Mandya LS by-poll last year.

Under these circumstances, the former MLAs don’t know whether their entry into the campaign would be of any benefit to the CM's son at this juncture.

They spoke against Mr Kumaraswamy for keeping them in the dark even at the time of finalising the joint candidate for the Mandya seat.  Time and again they were insulted publicly as ‘back stabbers’ by the CM who had also refused to go to their doorsteps to seek their help for his son.  Mr Siddaramaiah asked his party leaders to bury the hatchet in the interests of the Congress since the instruction has come from none other than Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

But the ex-legislators opined that as the CM has gone a long way ahead, it would not be appropriate on their part to campaign for the JD(S) candidate without consulting party workers. The sources said the former legislators were not bothered about any punitive action which Mr Siddaramaiah and KPCC President Dinesh Gundurao had warned of.

They said, “We are ready for any action  if they find any evidence of we working for Sumalatha Ambareesh. However,  we can't be held responsible in case Congress workers campaign for her. Not only Congress, even JD(S), BJP and Raitha Sabha workers are openly campaigning for her in the entire constituency,” they are learnt to have told Siddaramaiah.

Mr Siddaramaiah wants this issue to be sorted out before Mr Rahul Gandhi's visit to Karnataka this week.

The fate of the Mysuru-Kodagu candidate Vijayshankar in his home turf will be disastrous in case JD(S) leaders don't work for him. For this reason,  Mr Siddaramaiah has been requesting sulking Mandya Congress leaders to work for Nikhil so that it would be easy for the Mysuru candidate and Kuruba leader C.H. Vijayshankar to win against sitting BJP MP Pratap Simha. Siddaramaiah also wants to present a united front during the roadshow by Mr Rahul Gandhi in Mandya.

But seeing the outbursts of the former MLAs,  it will be interesting to see if they campaign for Nikhil or extend tacit support to Sumalatha.