NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday took a jibe at the ongoing internal tussle in Congress party in Karnataka. After Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah‘s “word power” post, BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla quipped that the party’s “words & worlds revolving around the chair”, adding that a new “episode has been added to this ongoing OTT series of ‘Congress vs Congress'”.“First, DK Shivakumar has said that there is a secret deal about the chief ministership. Then DK Shivakumar tweeted that ‘word power’ is ‘world power’… Then, responding to that, Siddaramaiah says that the word has no meaning if it doesn’t change the world… Their words and their worlds are revolving around the chair, and INC has now come to mean ‘I Need Chair, I Need Confusion.’ For the last two and a half years, their only priorities have been power, the chair, and leadership,” Poonawalla said.
“The Congress party has now started fighting openly in public in Karnataka, and yet another episode has been added to this ongoing OTT series of ‘Congress vs Congress’ in Karnataka,” he added.He further slammed the grand old party for ignoring the people of Karnataka. “They don’t care about people, and therefore, people of Karnataka are facing a farmer crisis, an economic crisis, a law-and-order crisis, an infrastructure crisis, a traffic crisis, and a pothole crisis… For Congress, power is the priority, not people,” he said.A public exchange between Karnataka’s two most powerful Congress leaders — CM Siddaramaiah and deputy CM DK Shivakumar — intensified this week, after what began as a seemingly innocuous social media post spiralled into a fresh round of political signalling over the leadership question.“WORD POWER IS WORLD POWER. The biggest force in the world is to keep one’s word. Be it a judge, president or anyone else including myself, everyone has to walk the talk. Word power is world power,” DKS said in a post on X on Wednesday.Siddaramaiah later replied with a similarly worded post, “That is what I am telling. Whatever we speak in our world that is called Pratikna. That is the word our tongue. That is. I said word power is world power. Wherever in the world. Whatever you speak is very much important. Whatever you also tell in your media also tell. Your anchor also speak. Whether your reporter speak, that is important. That is the power.”Later, DKS clarified that his “word power” remark was regarding Constitution Day. “Yesterday I was speaking on the our Constitution day. Whatever judges speak, whatever politicians speak, whatever is speak is very much important. I said that all you, all the advocates for all the advocate. I said when you speak you should be. When you convey the message, it should be very important,” he said.Talks around a possible leadership change in Karnataka are heating up, following the Congress government’s completion of two and a half years in power — the stage at which Shivakumar’s supporters believe a 2023 rotational arrangement should begin. Although Siddaramaiah has repeatedly insisted he plans to serve the entire five-year term, Shivakumar’s recent comments and social media activity have been seen as fresh indications of his interest in the top post.
