Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy threatened to quit on Monday voicing his anger over remarks made by certain Congress leaders and said they are ‘crossing the line’.
He asked the Congress to control its MLAs, after two of them, ST Somashekar and MTB Nagaraj, said on Sunday that they consider only former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as their leader, and not Kumaraswamy.
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“Congress leaders…They have to watch all these issues. It is left to them. You ask Congress leaders. I am not the concerned person for all these things,” a visibly angry Kumaraswamy told ANI when asked to comment on the remarks made by Somashekar and Nagaraj.
“Same thing if they want to continue to (do) all this, I am ready to step down. I am ready to step down. Congress leaders must think about all this. They are crossing the line, they must control,” the Chief Minister said.
The Congress immediately went into damage control mode, with its senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge, asking the leaders not to make unnecessary comments.
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“They (Karnataka Congress MLAs) shouldn’t react openly to the media. We’ve all come together to fight BJP-RSS. It’s not advisable for any member to speak against wishes of the party high command. Such incidents will create confusion in the coalition,” he said.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Congress leader G Parameshwara said that his party was happy with Kumaraswamy but found nothing wrong in MLAs expressing their opinion.
“Siddaramaiah has been the best Chief Minister. He is our Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader. For the MLA, he (Siddaramaiah) is the Chief Minister. He has expressed his opinion. What is wrong in that? We are all happy with him (Kumaraswamy),” Parameshwara said.
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In the 224-member Assembly, JD(S) has 37 seats and Congress has 80 seats.
Commenting on the Chief Minister’s outburst, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said: “Siddharamiah and his supporters in the party are training guns at HD Kumaraswamy. There is a war going on between the two. In order to hide this, they are making up a drama of MLAs being wooed by BJP. The fact is that this coalition is unstable.”
Ever since the Congress-JD(S) jointly formed the government in Karnataka in May last year, there have been murmurs of cracks in the coalition.
(with ANI inputs)
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