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File photo of Leader of Opposition R Ashoka
Credit: DH Photo
Leader of the Opposition R Ashoka, on Sunday, said the ‘Sadhana Samavesha’ held by the Congress in Mysuru on Saturday, to celebrate the party’s 2 years in office, was in reality a ‘public execution’ of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar’s political stature.
Echoing his statement, former deputy chief minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan called the event a “blatant display of heightened egos and arrogance”. They were separately speaking to reporters in the city.
“This was not Sadhana Samavesha to showcase achievements. It was a symbolic Guddali Pooje (groundbreaking ceremony) meant to politically bury Shivakumar by humiliating him in full public view,” Ashoka said.
He said Shivakumar had now been reduced to a ‘second-class citizen’ in the party, where he is the state president.
“Siddaramaiah has publicly humiliated him for the second time in 10 days. First, it was in Delhi, where — without provocation — he said Shivakumar enjoyed no support among MLAs. Now, at a major party event, the CM did not even acknowledge his presence,” he said.
The leader of the Opposition said not a single leader at the event spoke in Shivakumar’s favour. “It was clearly designed to humiliate him before the public”.
“The event succeeded in exposing the intense internal power struggle between the CM and his deputy. The BJP doesn’t need to bring this government down — it will collapse under the weight of its contradictions. Even if Congress MLAs approach us, we won’t topple it. We’d rather face elections and defeat this corrupt Congress regime in a democratic manner,” he said.
Ashwath Narayan described the Mysuru rally as an event hijacked by Siddaramaiah to serve his personal ambitions.
“The event turned into a stage for Siddaramaiah to assert himself as the supreme and the only leader of the Congress in Karnataka,” he said.
“He seems to be caught up in his own delusions of power. That’s why he’s behaving with such inflated self-importance,” Narayan said.
The former DCM said Congress leaders were not only “neck-deep in corruption and maladministration” but also lack “basic manners, public decorum and a sense of responsibility”.