Karnataka: Siddaramaiah visits home ground month after polls

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday visited his hometown, Mysuru nearly one month after he lost to Janata Dal (Secular) leader G T Devegowda in the Assembly elections held on May 12.

On Tuesday, Siddaramaiah met his supporters from the villages of Chamundeshwari segment as well as from his earlier Varuna constituency, at his residence in T K Layout in the city. Varuna is now represented by his son Dr Yathindra, who won with a huge margin of 58,616 votes.

Talking to reporters, Siddaramaiah said the first meeting of the coordination committee of the JD(S)-Congresscoalition government will be held in Bengaluru on June 14.

Despite the growing dissidence among Congress MLAs deprived of Cabinet berths, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah preferred not to get involved and is keeping a low profile while continuing to tour Badami constituency to thank its people for electing him to the Legislative Assembly.

Siddaramaiah has also tried to avoid the media glare while on his five-day tour of Badami in an attempt to avoid questions over the dissidence in the party.

He has promised to rent a house in Badami and visit the people of the constituency at least twice a month to supervise the development work and address their problems.

The former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that he lost in Chamundeshwari as people were lured by money by the BJP, while in Badami the people were not influenced like this.

He was speaking during his last day of visit to Badami on Monday.

Stating that the State's voters defeated the Congress despite launching several welfare schemes, he said that his party has joined hand with the JD(S) only to keep the communal BJP away from power.

The JDS-Congress cabinet was expanded on June 6 with the induction of 25 new ministers. The Congress has left six vacancies to be filled under its quota and the JDS, one. Several state leaders including Patil, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Ramalinga Reddy, R Roshan Baig, HK Patil, Tanvir Sait, Shamanur Sivashankarappa and, Satish Jarkhiholi, did not get ministerial berths.