Karnataka home minister G. Parameshwara has got the green signal from the AICC to host a dinner for Dalit ministers of the Siddaramaiah cabinet, which was supposed to be held on January 8 and got cancelled as deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar had played spoilsport.
Parameshwara’s office confirmed on Friday that the minister would now host the dinner for the Dalit ministers, senior Dalit legislators and others next week. The date and venue are yet to be announced.
This comes in the wake of speculation that Parameshwara has been trying to garner the support of the SC-ST communities in case of a change of guard at the helm of the Karnataka government after March.
“Dinner politics” has been doing the rounds in the Karnataka Congress since January 2 after public works minister Satish Jarkiholi hosted a dinner for a select few Dalit ministers. Apart from Parameshwara, cooperation minister K.N. Rajanna and social welfare minister H.C. Mahadevappa attended that party. Chief minister Siddaramaiah, who is an OBC Kuruba Gowda, had joined them halfway through the programme.
However, Shivakumar, who was in Delhi at that time, was kept in the dark about the dinner and it snowballed into a major controversy.
After that when Parameshwara planned the January 8 dinner, Shivakumar, who is keen to wrest power from Siddaramaiah, complained to the top brass of the AICC leadership. AICC general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal and AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, intervened and cancelled the event at the last moment.
The dominance allegedly shown by Shivakumar has not gone down well with a section of Congress leaders, especially Siddaramaiah and Parameshwara. For quite some time there has been a clamour among Dalits that the state should have a chief minister from the community. Hence the various dinner meetings have set alarm bells ringing for Shivakumar.