After a sweeping victory in the Karnataka Assembly elections, newly elected MLAs of the Congress had its first legislative party meeting on Sunday, 14 May, to decide on who the next chief minister will be.
While Congress had put up a collective front for the Assembly elections 2023, party leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar have been at loggerheads for quite some time over who will take the CM post.
In fact, supporters of both the Congress leaders put up posters outside their residences on Sunday, declaring them as the "next chief minister."
The CLP Meeting
Meanwhile, Congress has made Sushilkumar Shinde (former chief minister of Maharashtra), Jitendra Singh (All India Congress Committee general secretary), and Deepak Babaria (former AICC GS) as observers for the election of the CLP Leader of Karnataka, senior party leader KC Venugopal announced on Sunday.
The three observers were present in the CLP meeting and will submit the report to the party high command after collecting opinions from the newly-elected MLAs.
Several Congress MLAs including Dinesh Gundu Rao, Rizwan Arshad, Puttaranga Shetty C and Satish Jarkiholi had met party leader Siddaramaiah in Bengaluru on Sunday ahead of the CLP meeting.
A Congress source told The Quint, "It is unikely that the decision will be announced in the meeting. It will take a day or two."
The Congress on Saturday claimed a decisive victory in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly polls held on 10 May, by winning 135 seats. The BJP bagged 66 seats and Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) – 19 seats.
Though the decision to elect the CM is a challenging one, the grand-old party will at least not witness resort politics and coalition drama like in the last election.
To read about the CM race and about the two Congress contestants, click here.
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