In a development underlining the unease within the Congress on the contentious issue of power-sharing in Karnataka, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar has said that he would have gone ahead with projects that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was “scared” to undertake in his previous term.
“In 2017, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and KJ George, who was the then Bengaluru City Development minister, were scared about protests against a steel flyover in the city. If it were me, I wouldn’t have succumbed to the noise made by protesters and gone ahead with the project,” Shivakumar said while addressing the state Assembly at an event to mark the birth anniversary of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda, a chieftain under the Vijayanagara Empire.
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Shivakumar, also the president of the Karnataka unit of the Congress, made the remark while referring to the challenges faced in implementing crucial infrastructure projects.
Shivakumar’s statement, perceived by many as an affront to the Chief Minister, has brought the spotlight back on the fragile equation between the two top party leaders of the state that elected the Congress back to power just over a month ago.
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The party’s victory in the state was almost overshadowed by the turf war between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, with both staking their claim to chief ministership. It took several rounds of meetings with the central leadership of the Congress for the two leaders to put up a united front and form a government.
The BJP has since argued that it was only a matter of time before the peace brokered by the Congress falls apart, and takes the government down with it. “CM Siddaramaiah is silent but Deputy CM Shivakumar is violent. In every meeting, Shivakumar speaks ahead of the CM,” senior BJP leader and former minister R Ashoka said recently.