Congress Crisis: Venugopal To Meet Party Leaders, MLAs In Karnataka Amid Reports Of Rift

Amid reports that a cabinet expansion or reshuffle is on the cards in a bid to save the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal will hold a series of meetings with party leaders and legislators in the city today.

Venugopal, who reached here late Tuesday night, will meet Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, Country Liberal Party leader and Coordination Committee chief Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and Pradesh Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, sources said.

Venugopal will then hold a meeting with Congress ministers in the coalition government, they said, adding he will also take part in the CLP meeting scheduled in the evening.

Voices of dissent are gaining ground within the Congress in Karnataka as two of its MLAs met former chief minister SM Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.

The coalition government in the southern state has been fragile since its inception with reports of its collapse surfacing every then and now.

Venugopal's visit to the city gains significance as the coalition leaders are planing for an expansion or a reshuffle of the Kumaraswamy cabinet, aimed at saving the government.

While, Siddaramaiah on Tuesday had said it would be an expansion to fill three vacant posts, there are also reports quoting top sources in the government that some ministers may be asked to step down to make way for disgruntled legislators.

Out of 34 cabinet ministers, the Congress and the JD(S) have shared 22 and 12, respectively.

Currently, three posts are vacant, two from the JD(S) and one from the Congress.

Even as coalition leaders, including the chief minister, struggled to save the government, ministerial aspirants started lobbying on Tuesday.

Many Congress legislators have expressed strong reservation against priority being given to the disgruntled, sidelining loyalists.

With growing number of aspirants and less posts in hand, it remains to be seen how Venugopal and Congress leaders manage the situation.

In the meeting, Venugopal and the state party leadership may ask few ministers to make way for others, sources said. However, a section of party leaders believe that a cabinet expansion may be suitable at this moment, as any attempt for reshuffle may further worsen the situation.

The state executive of Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee will meet today and would endorse the CWC resolution urging Rahul Gandhi to continue as party chief and steer the party out of its current state, a top party leader said.

The meeting will be chaired by PCC Chief and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, he said.

This will be the first meeting of the party after the Congress's drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat in Rajasthan despite a winning the assembly elections there just months back.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande and other senior leaders of the party will attend the meeting which is scheduled at 2:30 p.m.

Rajasthan ministers Udai Lal Anjana and Ramesh Meena had demanded introspection and a detailed analysis of the defeat.

Agriculture minister Lalchand Kataria on Sunday announced his "resignation" from the state cabinet.

A purported press release, circulated on social media, said he was resigning over the poor performance by the party in the elections.

But there has been no confirmation on this by the Chief Minister's Office or the Raj Bhawan, and the minister has been unreachable.

Ashok Gehlot faces accusation that he concentrated on his son Vaibhav Gehlot's Jodhpur constituency, neglecting others.

Backing the continuation of Rahul Gandhi as the Congress president, senior party leader M Veerappa Moily termed the Lok Sabha election setback of the party as a "passing phase".

The former Union minister said the outcome of one or two elections could not be a pointer to the future prospects of the party, which had seen many ups and downs in its long history.

Describing Gandhi as the "inspiration" for the party, Moily said it was not appropriate for him to quit as the Congress chief.

"Just because Modi has won...that is not a criteria to leave the presidentship. After all, ups and downs are common for the Congress party. We have seen them many a time," he told PTI.

Stating that Gandhi should not insist on his resignation, he said he should "continue to guide the destiny of the party and the nation". "Apart from legacy, on his own personality, he is the most competent person to lead the party," Moily said.

"He is the right person to guide the Congress family. He should not think in terms of the Gandhi family, he should think of the Congress family.... One election cannot mar the glory of 135 years of the Congress," Moily said.

The senior leader also denied that the party was facing an "existential threat".

"The Lok Sabha election setback is a passing phase. One or two elections cannot determine the future of the Congress," he said.

Rahul Gandhi is the best person to pull the Congress out of its predicament following the setback in the Lok Sabha polls, party leader Shashi Tharoor said while declaring that his party is "alive and kicking" and it is too premature to write its obituary.

The Congress has no time to sit and lick its wounds as it must immediately pick itself up for the upcoming state elections, Tharoor told PTI.

Tharoor, who scored an electoral hat-trick by winning from the Thiruvanathapuram seat in the Lok Sabha polls, also said he is ready to take on the job of the Congress' leader in the Lok Sabha if offered the post.

Asked about Gandhi's offer to resign and if he was still Congress' best bet in terms of leadership, Tharoor said attempts in the media to pin all the blame for the party's electoral setback on his shoulders are simplistic and unfair.

"I think it does a disservice to the very complex challenges facing the Congress party to reduce it to a question of one person.

"While Rahulji has bravely taken full responsibility for the defeat, we all are responsible for what went wrong and we all have a responsibility to ensure the party's revival," the 63-year-old leader said.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief MK Stalin requested Congress president Rahul Gandhi not to step down from his post, saying he has won the hearts of the people though his party lost the general election.

Amid reports that Gandhi was firm on quitting, Stalin spoke to the Congress top leader over phone and “appealed to him to give up the idea of resigning as party president,” DMK said.

Rahul and his mother Sonia Gandhi greeted Stalin for the resounding victory of the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu.

The DMK-led front in Tamil Nadu won 37 of the 38 Lok Sabha seats.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad termed Rahul Gandhi's offer to resign as suicidal and said it would amount to “falling into the BJP's trap.”

Gandhi's offer to step down as Congress president would not only be suicidal for his party but for all the social and political forces battling against the Sangh Parivar, Prasad said in an analysis of the Lok Sabha poll results, published in an English daily, the link of which he shared on his Twitter handle.

"Rahul's offer to resign suicidal. Opposition parties had the common goal to dislodge BJP but failed to build a national narrative. The result in a particular election can never alter the reality in as diverse and plural a country as India," he said in a tweet.

This is the first instance after its inception in 1997 that the RJD could not win a parliamentary seat in Bihar and the second time in a row that it failed to win anything in Jharkhand.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings with party leaders including his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot amid his insistence on quitting, and rumblings of discontent in the northern state.

While Pilot met him earlier and Gehlot followed later, Priyanka was present during their meetings, sources said.

Party general secretary KC Venugopal and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala also held discussions at the residence of the Congress chief, who is adamant on having a non-Gandhi installed as the party head.

Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari after meeting Gandhi said, "Instead of resigning, he should seek resignations of leaders at all levels and restructure the party.”

He also indicated that the Congress Working Committee resolution, which had turned down his offer of resignation and urged him to revamp and restructure the party at all levels, is all pervasive. Leaders point out that the CWC being the highest decision-making body of the party has already put down in writing in its resolution in its meeting on May 25.

Faced with an electoral defeat, the Congress has been driven by internal turmoil. As the party grapples with a severe existential crisis, its governments in both Karnataka and Rajasthan teeter on the brink with reports suggesting the BJP may try to wrest power in both states.

Amid reports of a rift between ruling coalition partners Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, top Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of the state KC Venugopal are rushing to Bengaluru to sort things out.

Voices of dissent are gaining ground within the Congress as two of its MLAs met former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.

The coalition government in the southern state has been fragile since its inception with reports of its collapse surfacing every then and now.

Following the drubbing of the Congress-JD(S) combine in the just-concluded Lok Sabha election, where the two parties managed to win only one seat each in Karnataka, a senior Congress leader has claimed that the state government will collapse after June 10.

Of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, the BJP bagged 25 and an Independent candidate won one.

Two Congress MLAs -- Ramesh Jarkiholi and Sudhakar -- met BJP leaders at Krishna's residence, though they later claimed that their visit was not political.

Sources said Azad and Venugopal, two central leaders of the Congress, were going to Karnataka to placate the disgruntled state leaders, amid reports that the state unit of the party has convened a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party on May 29.

Azad and Venugopal are likely to hold discussions with the top leaders of the party in the state in order to sort things out.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had a series of visitors on Tuesday with his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as well as Rajasthan's ruling duo Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot calling on him amid rumblings of discontent in the state and his insistence on quitting.

On Monday, Rahul Gandhi cancelled all his appointments for the day and Gehlot could not meet him.

After Rahul Gandhi gave Gehlot a tongue lashing for putting his son above the party at a CWC meeting on Saturday, two days after the Lok Sabha votes were counted, several Rajasthan ministers and MLAs are demanding that accountability be fixed and action taken for the Lok Sabha poll debacle.

According to some leaders who attended the Congress Working Committee meeting, Gandhi did a lot of "plain-speaking" in his surgical analysis of the role of several party leaders while himself offering to quit as the party president.

Ticking-off Gehlot for camping in Jodhpur for his son Vaibhav's election, Gandhi said the chief minister spent days campaigning extensively for his son in Jodhpur and neglected the rest of the state.

The CWC meeting was held in the backdrop of the Congress winning just 52 Lok Sabha seats and drawing a nought in 18 states and Union Territories. Gandhi himself lost from the family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, though he won from Wayanad in Kerala.

Faced with a colossal electoral defeat, the Congress has been riven by internal turmoil. As the party grapples with a severe existential crisis, its governments in both Karnataka and Rajasthan teeter on the brink with reports suggesting the BJP may try to wrest power in both states.

The Congress drew a blank in Rajasthan as the NDA won all 25 Lok Sabha seats. In Karnataka, where it formed a government with the Janata Dal (Secular) in May last year, the Congress managed to win only one Lok Sabha seat out of 28.