Shivakumar gains upper hand over Siddaramaiah as Congress offers posts to party loyalists

Amid a cold war between former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Pradesh Congress president D K Shivakumar, the Congress high command is giving preference to old-timers instead of newcomers in appointing party leaders to different posts.

The appointments made by the party top brass for the past few days clearly indicate that Shivakumar is virtually gaining the upper hand in the organisation against Siddaramaiah.

Shivakumar, who has been aggressively pushing the party Delhi brass to give party posts to old-timers instead of newcomers, seems to have succeeded in keeping Siddaramaiah's loyalists away from any key posts.

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For the past few days, the party made several appointments like B K Hariprasad as Leader of the party in Karnataka Legislative Council, Prakash Rathod as the chief whip, K Govindraj as the Congress Deputy Leader of Legislative Council, U T Khader as Deputy Leader in Legislative Assembly, and M B Patil as Campaign Committee head.

Though Siddaramiah had been pushing former Minister C M Ibrahim as party leader in the Legislative Council, the party opted for Hariprasad.

Hariprasad, a veteran Congress leader, has been projecting himself as the OBC face in the party to counter Siddaramaiah.

The party, while ignoring Ibrahim, also did not give any post to another Siddaramaiah loyalist Zameer Ahmed Khan.

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By appointing Khader, the party sent two messages – one that it is giving a post to a minority leader and another that is he is an old-timer.

Though M B Patil was considered close to Siddaramaiah, senior Congress leaders in AICC said that the party gave him the post considering his seniority and clout among the Lingayat community.

Earlier also, the party top brass appointed Salim Ahmed, close to Shivakumar, as working president.

"The party high command used only loyalists as criteria while making all these appointments," said the leader.

The party wanted to overhaul the organisation by ensuring all plum posts should go to loyalists only, the leader said.

Soon after Shivakumar became PCC president in March 2020, senior leaders including Mallikarjuna Kharge, M Veerappa Moily, K H Muniyappa, B K Hariprasad and G Parameshwara backed Shivakumar's stand on giving preference to party loyalists over newcomers. Besides, these leaders were also lobbying at Delhi to reduce the clout of Siddaramaiah and his followers.

There was a long-standing grouse among party leaders that Siddaramaiah has been giving preference to his followers, who mostly came from Janata Parivar, instead of original Congressmen.

Shivakumar, who is a Chief Ministerial contender, also wanted to reshuffle district units. However, it was stalled after Siddaramaiah opposed the removal of some of his loyalists from district and block-level office bearers.

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