Rival camp urges Sonia to accept quit letters

Gunning for Siddaramaiah and Rao, a group of senior Congress leaders on Tuesday decided to urge the high command to accept their resignations immediately.

Former union minister K H Muniyappa, who chaired a meeting with Congress MPs from Karnataka, is learnt to have decided to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi and submit a report on the steps for the revival of the party soon.

In the meeting, attended by Rajya Sabha members B K Hariprasad, Nasir Hussain, G C Chandrashekhar and Lok Sabha member D K Suresh, they also also decided to urge Sonia to replace K C Venugopal as the Karnataka incharge general secretary.

The leaders also decided to urge Sonia to fix responsibility on those who approved the byelection tickets at the high command level.

They also decided to apprise the party top brass on how the party lost all elections in the state in the recent past.

The team also decided to meet leaders like Mallikarjuna Kharge, Veerappa Moily, D K Shivakumar and H K Patil to mobilise the campaign against Siddaramaiah.

Separately, Venugopal met Mallikarjuna Kharge and was closeted with him for more than hour. The leaders have decided to meet all the state leaders and submit a report to Sonia about the bypoll defeat.

Venugopal has welcomed the resignation of Siddramaiah and Rao.