BENGALURU: Congress legislature party leader Siddaramaiah’s gambit of fielding a Muslim candidate to expose a seemingly tacit agreement between JD(S) and BJP and expose the regional party’s no-so-secular credentials didn’t quite go to plan.
The former CM had taken the lead in the Rajya Sabha campaign and got the party’s high command to field a second candidate – one for which the party did not have enough votes to ensure a win.
The seasoned veteran reportedly pressured the high command to field Mansoor Ali Khan, a Muslim. It was a “secular” missile aimed at JD(S), but it backfired.
Congress had expected JD(S) to support Khan or seek BJP’s support to help D Kupendra Reddy, the regional party’s candidate, win the fourth, but neither happened. With an assembly election looming, Siddaramaiah had hoped the ploy would give his party a proverbial stick with which to beat JD(S).
But now, the outspoken senior Congressman is being labelled the “villain” of the plot for helping BJP win a third seat, and is virtually running for cover. After Congress and JD(S) announced that they were fielding a candidate for the fourth seat, BJP, instead of joining hands with JD(S), fielded Lahar Singh Siroya as its candidate.
As expected, JD(S) pounced on the opportunity to hit back at Siddaramaiah with former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy leading the charge. He blamed Siddaramaiah, with whom he has a running feud, for it. “Yes, definitely. He [Siddaramaiah] pressured our MLAs not to vote for JD(S) to help BJP,” Kumaraswamy said.
The JD(S) floor leader pointed out that Siddaramaiah had denied that he wrote an open letter to JD(S) MLAs requesting them to cast their “conscience vote” in favour of the Congress candidate. He also alleged BJP general secretary CT Ravi was seen entering the Congress office, suggesting a tie-up.
“Siddaramaiah resorted to the undemocratic practice of hijacking our MLA [K Srinivas Gowda] and getting him to cross-vote,” Kumaraswamy said. “I would have been happy if Congress had won the seat by doing this, but he ended up helping BJP. ”
On the other hand, Congress blamed JD(S) for BJP’s victory, saying it fielded a candidate for the fourth seat despite having insufficient votes and even after they [Congress] fielded a candidate from a minority community. “JD(S) leaders have to take the blame for helping BJP because they did not retire their candidate,” said KPCC working president Saleem Ahmed.
