Belagavi Cong infighting: All is well, says Hebbalkar

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru / Belagavi: Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar on Wednesday tried to downplay the tension between her and Cabinet colleague Satish Jarkiholi.

The statement comes a day after Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in whose camp Hebbalkar is, tried to reach out to Minister for Public Works Satish Jarkiholi, a CM Siddaramaiah loyalist, at the latter’s residence in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Shivakumar wanted to consult with Satish before flying out to New Delhi to meet with All India Congress Committee (AICC) leaders. “If there is no story, then where is the question of it ending?” she told mediapersons.

Satish had said earlier that the issues pertaining to Belagavi politics were never ending and that they would be dealt with.

However, Hebbalkar retorted that there was no issue to begin with. Lok Sabha ticket bone of contention The cause of the friction between Satish and Hebbalkar is that Jarkiholi wants his daughter to get a ticket from the party for the Belagavi Lok Sabha seat while Laxmi wants the same for her son.

The other sticking point is the pending replacement of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working presidents. As many as three of the five KPCC working presidents are ministers: Ramalinga Reddy (Transport), Eshwar Khandre (Forests) and Satish.

The other two are Saleem Ahmed and BN Chandrappa, who had replaced R Dhruvanarayana when the latter died in March. Workers argue that the ministers could not do justice to both roles.

They argue that fresh blood is needed, especially since Lok Sabha elections are due next year. Their replacement has been due since August.

Satish wants ex- MLA as KPCC working prez Satish has been pushing for former Congress MLA from Khanapur Anjali Nimbalkar’s under the women’s quota while Hebbalkar favours Athani MLA Laxman Savadi.

Jarkiholi believes that a party loyalist should get the post over Savadi, who left the BJP for the Congress before the May Assembly elections.

Satish, in an attempt to display his clout in the Kittur-Karnataka had planned to take out a trip of 20 MLA supporters from the region to Mysuru.

However, intervention by AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretaries KC Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala had convinced him to drop the plan.

The stand-off is a deja vu from 2019 when Hebbalkar and Satish’s brother Ramesh Jarkiholi had fought for the control of the Primary Land Development (PLD) bank and Shivakumar had intervened in Laxmi’s favour.

A miffed Ramesh had taken his protégé and then Athani MLA Mahesh Kumathalli with him to the BJP, culminating in Operation Kamala that had toppled the HD Kumaraswamyled coalition government.