The central leaders of the Congress have decided to hold a crucial meeting with 15 senior Ministers of the Siddaramaiah-led Cabinet in New Delhi on January 11 to decide the strategy and candidates for the Lok Sabha seats in the State.
The former AICC president Rahul Gandhi, AICC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge, and other senior leaders will attend the meeting. Already, the party has appointed 28 Ministers as coordinators to the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State. Following the proposed meeting, the State Cabinet meeting called on January 11 at the State Secretariat has been cancelled.
Target set
The party high command is believed to have given the target of winning 26 Lok Sabha seats in the State in the coming elections. Earlier, the party had reportedly directed the State leaders to ensure victory in at least 20 constituencies. The Congress won just one seat in 2019.
Meanwhile, AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala, who held a meeting with senior leaders of the party in the State on Tuesday, decided to put a break on the proposal to create three additional posts of Deputy Chief Minister in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet.
Mr. Kharge too stated in Kalaburagi on Tuesday that there was no proposal to create the additional posts.
“You can ask [Chief Minister] Siddaramaiah and [Deputy Chief Minister] D.K. Shivakumar. There is no such proposal before us. Such issues should not crop up during the elections. We must focus on giving good governance and addressing people’s problems. We must focus on implementing our guarantee schemes,” he told reporters.
Talks with leaders
Mr. Surjewala held discussions with senior Ministers Ehswar Khandre, M.B. Patil, Satish Jarkiholi, and G. Parameshwara and others, who are aspiring to become Deputy Chief Ministers.
Mr. Surjewala has reportedly discussed the issue of the appointment of chiefs to various government-owned boards and corporations with Mr. Siddararmaiah and Mr. Shivakumar. While the former stuck to his push for the appointment of legislators to the government bodies, the KPCC chief prefers party workers and leaders over MLAs and MLCs in the appointments, which has become a bone of contention.
