Rebellion in Congress makes CM edgy over govt’s survival

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy is a worried man. It’s been a mere fortnight since he ascended the chief minister gaddi, but he is already fretting over the fate of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government he is heading.

While the JD(S) leaders have more or less fallen in line -- thanks to JD(S) patriarch
H D Deve Gowda’s shrewd political interventions; the same cannot be said of the party’s coalition partner, the Congress.

The escalating dissent in the Congress has made Kumaraswamy edgy, as he is beginning to sense that the ongoing developments might pose a threat to the very survival of the government.

Friday saw Kumaraswamy personally reaching out to the senior Congress MLA and Lingayat leader M B Patil, who is spearheading the dissident campaign comprising around 15 to 20 of his party legislators.

Upon realising the futility of the mediation by senior Congress leaders, Kumaraswamy himself rushed to Patil’s residence in Sadashivanagar, after a meeting with Deve Gowda, in the hope that his intervention might yield a positive outcome.

But it wasn’t meant to be, as Patil, along with the other MLAs, had decided to up the ante against the Congress leadership.

“As head of the coalition government, it becomes my responsibility to pacify him. But he has made it clear that he will not back out.

The MLAs have decided to collectively chalk out their next course of action. Patil feels let down. I will appeal to the Congress central leaders to quell the dissidence at the earliest. We are in this situation today because of the decisions taken by the Congress. The party has to iron out the issues. I can’t interfere too much,” he added.

A worried looking Kumaraswamy then headed to his home office ‘Krishna’ where he was closeted with his brother and minister H D Revanna, his economic advisor S Subramanya and Chief Secretary Ratna Prabha for quite some time. Kumaraswamy is learnt to have taken their counsel on the damage control measures to be adopted.

As if anticipating trouble, Kumaraswamy had his official appointments cancelled for the day. He has even begun holding special homas and pujas ever since he became the chief minister. On Friday morning, a handful of priests were seen entering his JP Nagar residence.

For the second consecutive Friday they performed the ‘Chandika Parayana’ at his residence.

The Parayana, which involves chanting of 700 shlokas, is said to keep bad energies away.