Is Bangarappa bidding bye again to Cong?

PTI

Bangalore, 12 December 2010: Former Karnataka Chief Minister S Bangarappa has given a hint about his quitting Congress again and joining JDS led by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.

 

"Kumaraswamy has invited me to join JDS. I will take a decision on it in three or four days,"  Bangarappa told reporters after a brief meeting with JDS leader and Gowda’s son H D Kumaraswamy.

 

Bangarappa is reportedly unhappy with the Congress after it did not heed his advice on appointment of office bearers to the party’s Soraba unit.

 

Bangarappa has been insisting that his elder son, Kumar Bangarappa, with whom he does not enjoy cordial relations, should not be given any post in the Sorab unit, his home turf in Shimoga district.

 

He has said that his another son Madhu, a film producer, be preferred for leadership. However, a majority of leaders in the Shimoga district unit want Kumar, an actor-turned-politician, to be given preference in the party affairs.

 

Bangarappa has been a votary of forging unity among secular parties including JDS in Karnataka, for which the Congress leadership is unwilling going by its experience earlier with the Gowda outfit which pulled down Congress-JDS coalition government headed by N Dharam Singh in 2006.

 

As Karnataka is in the midst of panchayat elections, Kumaraswamy today called on Bangarappa and invited him to join his party.

 

Kumaraswamy told reporters that he was confident that Bangarappa would take a decision on his invitation.

 

Bangarappa has quit the Congress at least half a dozen times and rejoined it as many times.

 

Bangarappa returned to the Congress in 2008 ahead of Lok Sabha polls and was defeated by Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa’s son Raghavendra in Shimoga Lok Sabha constituency. Dealing a double blow, Yedyurappa himself trounced Bangarappa from Shikaripur Assembly constituency in the Assembly elections.

 

Bangarappa’s son Madhu, who contested as an independent, bit the dust at the hands of H Halappa of BJP in Soraba Assembly segment, where his elder son Kumar (Cong) also lost.