'Embarrassed' Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy complains to Congress High Command over Siddaramaiah's 'detrimental' statements. Read here

Just a little over a month after coming to power, Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy has had to appeal to the Congress high command over a rift within the JD(S)-Congress alliance.

The matter pertains to Kumaraswamy's predecessor Siddaramaiah's statements to the media about the Karnataka budget and over whether or not the government would last its full term.

On the former matter, Kumaraswamy, who also holds the finance ministry portfolio in the state, is of the opinion that a new full annual budget needs to be presented as since the time that the erstwhile Siddaramaiah-led government presented its final full budget in February, elections have taken place and a number of the then MLAs have been replaced. Siddaramaiah, on the other hand, rather unceremoniously brushed aside Kumaraswamy's contention and said that the old Congress government's schemes should be allowed to continue and whatever additional schemes the new government wants to announce can be done in a supplementary budget.

Kumaraswamy said:

"Whatever the reality is, there are talks about whether or not a new budget should be presented. When the budget was presented in February in the last term, around 100 MLAs had lost the elections and they have been replaced with newly-elected MLAs. They (the new ones) are not aware of what happened before. We don't know what aspirations the new MLAs have. If we continue on what was agreed upon by MLAs of the previous term, then it will be a breach of privilege of the new MLAs. What will I do if someone moves breach of privilege motion against me?"

To which Siddaramaiah said:

"All schemes announced by our government and all new schemes in the budget will be continued. If Kumaraswamy wants to add new schemes, let him do it through a supplementary budget.

On being asked specifically if he thinks there's no need for a fresh budget, Siddaramaiah added:

"Well, that's my opinion. As a Finance Minister you can do it through a supplementary budget. If anything was missed out during the earlier budget, it can be added."

Following that, Siddaramaiah, who is the chairman of the Congress-JD(S) coordination committee, made alarming statements about whether the government would complete 5 years. In a video, Siddaramaiah is heard saying, "Five years difficult. Let's see what will happen after the Parliament elections. They will remain until Parliament elections are over. After that, we'll have to see what developments happen".

As a result of these statements, Kumaraswamy has called up senior Congress leaders and complained about the open statements about him by Siddaramaiah and others. As per sources, he said that such statements are detrimental to the alliance and are causing him embarrassment.