With the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s attempts to poach its legislators going nowhere so far, the ruling parties’ coordination committee will meet on Thursday evening over sharing of seats for the 2019 parliamentary elections.
The panel is expected to take a decision on convening the budget session of the State legislature and strategy to be adopted to keep the ruling parties’ flock together as four of the Congress legislators, who abstained from the CLP meeting last week, are still said to be in touch with the BJP.
Sources said that talks would be largely confined to seat sharing since JD(S) has been eyeing nearly a dozen parliamentary seats. The JD(S) is expected to bargain hard to get maximum number of seats in southern parts of the State.
The alleged brawl between Congress MLAs G.N. Ganesh and Anand Singh at private resort and action to be taken against four legislators who ignored the CLP meeting last Friday are also expected to figure prominently during the meting.
The coordination committee, headed by former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, is also expected to discuss issues related to inclusion of new proposals in the State budget and Congress legislators’ demand for releasing of more funds for their constituencies.
Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal, and general secretary of JD(S) Danish Ali are expected to attend the meeting.
BJP waits in the wings
Meanwhile, sources in the BJP said they were keenly watching the coordination committee meeting on Thursday, to see whether any decision on Cabinet expansion and reshuffle would be taken or not to accommodate the disgruntled MLAs. “Four Congress MLAs and two Independents have been resolute in their stand to oppose the coalition government and are in touch with us. The brawl among Ballari district MLAs, who had wanted to switch camps but were wooed back, shows that everything is not right,” said a BJP leader.
He claimed that Congress had made tall promises to the rebel MLAs, including Cabinet berths for which senior ministers have to resign and Cabinet has to be reshuffled and expanded. “Any delay in implementing their promises would escalate trouble and bring down the government,” said another BJP leader.
