Bengaluru: The Karnataka crisis of power transfer from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, which has put the Congress party high command into a crisis has gained momentum with the party deciding to hold a high level meeting on Sunday evening.
Before the final meeting, the party Parliamentary Board would be meeting in New Delhi on Saturday, which is likely to delegate the powers to take a decision to LOP Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi will be returning from abroad on Saturday, the Parliamentary Board will be authorising her to convince any one of the two to abide by the party decision. Meanwhile, former MP and D K Shivakumar's brother D K Suresh has left for Delhi and is expected to hold meetings with the key members of the Parliamentary Board.
Meanwhile, the power transfer issue has turned out to be a caste war between Vokkaliga and Kuruba communities in Karnataka. Since Thursday, key members of both the communities have started issuing statements in favour of their party leaders.
The first statement came through the seer of Adichunchanagiri Mutt Nirmalananda Swamiji, who expressed his disappointment over the ongoing issue. He said that the community was expecting a Vokkaliga to become chief minister, but does not look to be happening.
Reacting sharply to the statement, seer of Kaginele Mutt Niranjanananda Puri Swamiji, which belongs to Kuruba community said that there was no provision in the Constitution to make someone Chief Minister as per the wishes of swamijis.
However, seer of Nidumamidi mutt Channamalla Swamiji, which belongs to backward class communities said that if Siddaramaiah has promised to transfer power after two and a half years, he has to abide by his words and if there are no such agreements, he should continue as the Chief Minister.
On the other side, Karnataka Rajya Vokkaligara Sangha held a meeting and urged the Chief Minister to abide by his promise of transferring power to D K Shivakumar. The Sangha President Konappa Reddy said that the Vokkaligas had supported Congress during the previous elections and helped the party come to power. If the party does not abide by the promises, the Vokkaligas would desert the party forever.
Reacting sharply, the Kuruba Sangha President Ramachandrappa said that the Congress should not be scared of blackmail by the Vokkaliga community. The Vokkaliga community constitutes only 20 per cent and have dominance in only a few constituencies. Siddaramaiah is backed by AHINDA (Minorities, Backward and Dalits), which is a deciding factor in more than 165 constituencies. If Siddaramaiah is removed, the party would lose more than 90 MLAs, they warned.
