Kumaraswamy returns, JD-S holds parleys on rebels quitting
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy returned to the city on Sunday night from a week-long private visit to the US and held parleys with the ruling Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leaders on the party’s three MLAs resigning along with nine Congress rebels on Saturday, a party official said.
The resignations have created a crisis of survival for the state’s Congress-Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) coalition government.
“Kumaraswamy returned from the US to New Delhi in the evening by an Air India flight and flew to Bengaluru in a chartered aircraft with two other JD-S Cabinet ministers,” party spokesman Ramesh Babu told IANS here.
The Chief Minister then drove to a hotel in the city and discussed the crisis arising out of the rebels’ resignation with party supremo and his father H.D. Deve Gowda and other leaders, including state PWD Minister and his elder brother H.D. Revenna.
On Monday, Kumaraswamy will hold talks with Congress leaders, including its state in-charge K.C. Venugopal, legislature party leader Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara and state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao to resolve the crisis threatening the year-old coalition government.
Though Deve Gowda advised Kumaraswamy to wait for Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar’s decision on the resignations, others want him to call the party rebels back from Mumbai and ask them to withdraw their resignations before the Speaker acts on them.
“Our three rebel legislators (A.H. Vishwanath, Gopalaiah and Narayana Gowda) did not tell our leaders what were their concerns or demands all these months. Suddenly, they joined the Congress rebels and resigned without informing even Deve Gowda” said Babu.
JD-S Ministers G.T. Deve Gowda, C.S. Puttaraju and Sa Ra Mahesh have offered to resign so that the party’s three rebels can be pacified and inducted in a Cabinet reshuffle.
“Kumaraswamy will discuss with the Congress leaders if it will also induct some of its rebels in the 34-member Cabinet ministry by dropping an equal number of its ministers,” Babu added.