Sidda hosts 5-star dinner, races Kharge

May 10, 2013 |

Age Correspondent

Bengaluru

Who will be the new chief minister of Karnataka? Clear signals are likely to emerge by Friday evening provided the process to select the new Congress Legislature Party leader does not end in deadlock.
There are enough signs that choosing the new CM is not going to be easy with a section of veteran Congressman trying to pip the chances of former deputy CM Siddaramaiah, a front-runner for the post. They feel the best way to do this is to push more aspirants into the fray and divide the votes of the CLP if the CM has to be decided by a vote. With Union minister Mallikarjun Kharge having the solid backing of a large number of MLAs from North and Hyderabad Karnataka, a division of votes would only spoil the chances of Mr Siddaramaiah, say these Congressmen. Siddara-maiah joined the party about seven years ago while Mr Kharge was a minister in the Devraj Urs Cabinet in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, both Mr Kharge and Mr Siddaramaiah are doing their best to stay ahead in the race and so are other contenders, like former KPCC president R.V. Deshpande and former minister D.K. Shivakumar. Siddaramaiah held a dinner for party MLAs at a five-star hotel which was reportedly attended by nearly 30 legislators, including 11 Kurubas.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/232319" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-efc8020b18387cfe11f96c82e94356f6" value="form-efc8020b18387cfe11f96c82e94356f6" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85558578" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>