Siddaramaiah leads race for KPCC chief
BY VENKATESH KESARI
New Delhi
Aug. 19: Former deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah is emerging as a frontrunner for the post of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. This was indicated by highly-placed sources here on Monday. But the Central leaders are expected to take some time to make a formal announcement of a new PCC president.
Though the names of Mr D.B. Chandre Gowda and Mr R.V. Deshpande are doing the rounds for the post, Mr Siddaramaiah is seen as a strong candidate to head the party in this key state where the Congress’ support base is still intact although it lost the state Assembly polls due to multi-cornered contests and wrong selection of candidates.
The Congress hopes to rebuild the party by consolidating dalit, OBCs, minorities and Vokkaliga in the coming months.
"We want someone who can take all groups and factions with him. He should be acceptably to the majority of workers by and large," a senior Congress leader said.
The party had fought the state Assembly polls under Mr Mallikarjun Kharge as its chief. But his election as the Congress Legislature Party leader has created a vacancy in the organisation. The Central leaders feel that he would rejuvenate the party ahead of the general elections.
Mr Siddaramaiah, a powerful OBC leader, has been a member of the state legislative Assembly since 1983. But it will be interesting to see how he would tackle his former mentor, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda. This is because a section of the Congress is optimistic of allying with the Janata Dal (Secular) supremo to check the BJP in the state. The JD(S) had voted against the Manmohan Singh government on the trust vote in the Lok Sabha in July.
Mr Siddaramaiah, whose political career began on anti-Congressism, had quit the JD(S) because of the style of functioning of Mr Deve Gowda.
He had won the Chamundeshwari bypolls by 257 votes against Mr Shivbasappa, who was the joint candidate of the JD(S)-BJP.
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