Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Goa meet was only a get-together: B.R. Patil

GULBARGA: Former Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council B.R. Patil on Tuesday said that former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his supporters, who had joined the Congress as a group, had met in Goa two days ago to take stock of the political situation in Karnataka.

Mr. Patil told presspersons here that Mr. Siddaramaiah and his supporters had been meeting regularly in Bangalore to review the developments in the party, and the Goa conclave was not any different.

Apart from Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Patil, former Ministers C.M. Ibrahim, H.C Mahadevappa, Satish Jharkhihole, Mahadev Prasad and M. Venkatesh participated in the Goa meet.

Mr. Patil said the main issues discussed included the offer made by the AICC General Secretary Prithviraj Chavan to Mr. Siddaramaiah to accept the post of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president.

During his recent visit to Bangalore, Mr. Chavan had met Mr. Siddaramaiah and had offered him the post, and Mr. Siddaramaiah had expressed some reservations in accepting it, Mr. Ptail said.

He said at that at the Goa conclave, Mr. Siddaramaiah’s supporters had been successful in persuading him to accept the offer made by the Congress. “We have communicated this to Mr. Chavan and now it is the party high command’s turn to take a decision.”

Asked whether Mr. Siddaramaiah and his supporters would join the Janata Dal (Secular) now since H.D. Kumaraswamy had invited them to join the party, Mr. Patil said there was no question of them doing so.

To another question, Mr. Patil said the “Operation Lotus” launched by the BJP to lure MLAs from the Opposition parties was sure to backfire in the coming days. “The BJP has set in a bad precedent and will learn its lesson in the byelections.”

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