Amid attack, KPCC chief rules out stepping down

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Friday refused to step down amid a clamour within the party for a change in leadership, what with disqualified legislator S T Somashekhar even dubbing him “incompetent.”

A section of senior Congress leaders is up in arms against “unilateral decision-making” of legislature party leader Siddaramaiah and Rao.

“I will remain (as president) until the high command asks me to stay. If the high command asks me to go, I will go,” Rao told reporters. “I won’t resign just because someone asked me to. In fact, no one has asked for my resignation,” he maintained.

Rao’s assertion came a day after the party’s state election committee meeting where seniors KH Muniyappa and B K Hariprasad vented their ire against the leadership, especially Siddaramaiah and Rao, accusing them of “neglecting” the old-timers.

In a fresh attack, Someshekhar hit out at Rao’s style of functioning. “He should stop talking about us. He’s an ayogya (incompetent). If he had performed his duty properly, why would we resign?

“We hadn’t quit the Congress. We quit as MLAs because we were unhappy with the coalition government,” Somashekhar said. “But this has become Siddaramaiah’s Congress where decision-making is vested with only a few, like Rao, Krishna Byre Gowda and Rizwan Arshad. It’s as if only they form the Congress party.”

Somashekhar also demanded to know why the party had not acted against those responsible for the drubbing in Lok Sabha polls. “In Kolar, Mandya and Tumkur, why didn’t the Congress take action against those who were responsible for defeat?

Today, they make speeches against us with the real culprits sitting next to them,” he said, referring to former Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, who has been accused of working against Muniyappa in Kolar.

In response, Rao said the party can take action on internal sabotagers only if there was enough proof.

“Wherever there’s proof, we have taken action. In fact, we have constituted a fact-finding committee that will submit a report on October 2,” he said.

“Also, we have involved seniors in all our activities. We deputed seniors to be observers for the bypolls. We involve all who are willing to give the party time.

“Those in Delhi are busy, so we called them to the state election committee for their opinions. We usually call them at the end after making the groundwork,” Rao explained.