'Totally false': Siddu on report of 'high command won't make DK next CM'

Congress leader Siddaramaiah has given a clarification to the reports suggesting that State Congress chief D.K. Shivakumar does not stand a chance to occupy the Chief Minister post.

"What is being quoted in the media is totally false. All I said is that the selection of the CM is a democratic process, I am an aspirant for CM and he (Shivakumar) is also an aspirant. But what they're saying is false," ANI reported Siddaramaiah as tweeting on Tuesday.

What did he actually say

In an interview on Monday, Siddaramaiah said that high command will not intervene to choose the next Chief Minister if his party emerges victorious in the upcoming Assembly polls as the elected MLAs have to make a choice.

"Because we have to go by the democratic process, the high command won't take a decision on its own and would go by the opinion of the newly elected MLAs," NDTV quoted Siddaramaiah as saying. However, some reports quoted him as saying that the high command would not allow Shivakumar to become the Chief Minister.

Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are nursing chief ministerial ambitions and there has been be a game of political one-upmanship between the two leaders. Though both of them have on record maintained that the CM will be decided by party's newly elected MLAs and high command on gaining majority in the polls, their respective loyalists and camps are hellbent on projecting them as the next CM, making things messy for the party.

What do surveys say?

In the ABP News-CVoter survey, the leader of opposition Siddaramaiah has emerged as the clear favourite for the position of Chief Minister as 39.1 per cent respondents want him as their CM, while 31.1 per cent still wanted incumbent Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. While 21.4 per cent of Brahmins consider H.D. Kumaraswamy worthy of the post, only 3.2 per cent chose Shivakumar as their preferred CM face.