Siddaramaiah will not relinquish power if he is still the rebel he once was: Basavaraj Bommai

'Rift in the Congress started the very day Siddaramaiah came to power. Now, it has widened. Let us wait and watch'

Mysuru: BJP MP and former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has said that how resolute Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is will be known this month. “If he is still the rebel Siddaramaiah that he once was, he will not relinquish power for any reason,” he said on Monday.

Bommai, who was a junior to Siddaramaiah in the erstwhile Janata Dal, was speaking to mediapersons in Mysuru on Monday on the ongoing talks of leadership change and Cabinet revamp in Karnataka.

Bommai said it was unfortunate that Siddaramaiah had been forced to repeatedly declare that he remain the Chief Minister for the whole of the government's five-year term.

“A struggle has begun between ‘rebel Siddaramaiah’ and 'compromise Siddaramaiah’. If he is the same rebel Siddaramaiah, he will not give up for any reason. If he has become a compromising Siddaramaiah, he will give up power,” he said.

Bommai said, “The Siddaramaiah we have seen has always been a rebel. His politics has always been tough and rigid. That is the original Siddaramaiah. Now, it will be clear whether he has changed due to the lure of power. A personality like Siddaramaiah should not have been reduced to the pathetic state of having to say ‘I am the CM’ every day”.

Referring to the 40 per cent commission campaign taken up by the Congress against his government in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections, Bommai said, “Investigation report has proven that the commission allegations made against the BJP government were false. Now, everyone knows how much commission is being transacted in every department of their (Congress) government.”

Commenting on the developments in the Karnataka Congress, Bommai said, “Rift in the Congress started the very day Siddaramaiah came to power. Now, the rift has widened even more. Let us wait and watch”.