Rift widens in Karnataka, Congress sends top leader to Bengaluru

Amid reports of a rift between ruling coalition partners Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, Congress general secretary in-charge of the state K C Venugopal is rushing to Bengaluru to sort things out.

A meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Karnataka has been convened, which will take stock of the ongoing political developments in the southern state, triggering speculation about the future of its coalition government.

Top Karnataka Congress leaders will take stock of the situation in the state and seek to unite all partymen to ensure that there is no threat to the coalition government.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was also supposed to attend the meeting, but he cancelled his Bengaluru visit in view of the situation prevailing within the party after its president Rahul Gandhi offered to resign.

Voices of dissent are gaining ground within the Congress in Karnataka as two of its MLAs met former chief minister S M Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.

The coalition government in the southern state has been fragile since its inception with reports of its collapse surfacing every then and now.

Following the drubbing of the Congress-JD(S) combine in the just-concluded Lok Sabha election, where the two parties managed to win only one seat each in Karnataka, a senior Congress leader has claimed that the state government will collapse after June 10.

Of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, the BJP bagged 25 and an Independent candidate won one.

Two Congress MLAs -- Ramesh Jarkiholi and Sudhakar -- met BJP leaders at Krishna's residence, though they later claimed that their visit was not political.

Sources said Venugopal was going to Karnataka to placate the disgruntled state leaders, amid reports that the state unit of the party has convened a meeting of the CLP on Wednesday.

He is likely to hold discussions with the top leaders of the party in the state in order to sort things out.

The BJP, with 105 MLAs, is the single-largest party in the 225-member Karnataka Assembly. The ruling coalition has 117 members -- 79 of the Congress, 37 of the JD(S) and one of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).