Two top Congress leaders are skipping their leader, Sonia Gandhi’s inauguration of the party campaign for the Lok Sabha elections at Davangere on Monday. Both are unhappy over the state of affairs in the party.
Former railway minister CK Jaffer Sharief is not going to Davangere. So is former law minister DB Chandre Gowda.
Both were considered staunch Indira Gandhi loyalists.
Sharief has a reason to keep away from the big event. There is confusion over ticket to him from Bangalore Central constituency.
He has locked horns with Sonia Gandhi’s new-found loyalist HT Sangliana for the ticket and in all probability the Janata Dal (Secular) may end up as the beneficiary.
According to AICC sources, Sangliana might pip Sharief at the post in the race for the Central ticket. This is because Sonia wants to keep up her promise to him, after he voted in favour of the Congress during the trust vote on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
But Sharief, a loyal party worker and someone who was considered very close to Indira Gandhi, is also adamant that he be made the party candidate from Bangalore Central.
It is clear that denied his choice of seat, Sharief may crossover to the JD(S).
Sharief told DNA that as far as he is concerned there was no confusion he was very clear that he would contest from Bangalore Central.
He said he would there was so much speculation though the list was not even out. He said he would wait for two more days before deciding his future course of action.
And in Chandre Gowda’s case, there is nothing at stake. Gowda is not a ticket aspirant. But he is very unhappy over the delay in announcing the list of party candidates as, he fears, the party is losing advantage and would pay for every wasted.
He said no senior leader had the guts to tell this to the high command. Gowda also indicated that several Congressmen and veteran loyalists are dejected as the high command was not taking everybody into confidence in the candidate selection process.
KPCC working president DK Shivakumar, meanwhile, set the cat among the pigeons, saying that Sharief has been shortlisted to contest either from Bangalore North or Bangalore Rural.
He said the former railway minister had once contested from Bangalore Rural, and hence was one of the right choices for that Lok Sabha seat.
Shivakumar also said that the party was considering Sharief for Bangalore North constituency.
He claimed that he had been told by the party high command to be prepared to enter the Lok Sabha poll arena. In the event of Sharief rejecting the party offer of a ticket from Bangalore Rural, Shivakumar will be the candidate, the state unit working president said.
