Bengaluru: Speaking to media persons Wednesday, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said that the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala had not “officiated” any meeting in Bengaluru. His statement was an attempt to diffuse the uproar over the presence of Surjewala, also the Congress state in-charge, at a purported “official” meeting held Tuesday in Bengaluru.
The CM said that it was “not an official meeting” and that Surjewala was there to speak to the Bengaluru city MLAs about the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP, the city’s civic body) elections, to be held this year. “The meeting was about Bengaluru city but they (participants) spoke about corporation elections as well, but it was not an official meeting,” Siddaramaiah said.
The purported meeting has given the Opposition ammunition to attack the one-month-old Congress government.
Congress MLA B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan Tuesday posted a picture of a “meeting” on Twitter and wrote, “Participated in the meeting called by @DKShivakumar at Shangri-la hotel in Bengaluru and discussed about various issues and betterment of Bengaluru. AICC general secretary and in charge of Karnataka @rssurjewala was also present (sic).”
The tweet has since been deleted but the BJP posted a screenshot.
The picture shows Surjewala seated in the middle of a conference room. Others in attendance include senior BBMP officials like Rakesh Singh and city corporation commissioner Tushar Girinath, among others.
Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and senior cabinet members like Zameer Ahmed Khan, K.J. George and Ramalinga Reddy are also seen in the picture.
Soon after Khan posted the photo, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) levelled allegations against the Congress government for allowing Surjewala to “chair” a meeting of officials and MLAs from Bengaluru.
One senior official told ThePrint that Surjewala came in to talk to the legislators and left within ‘2-3 minutes’ and during his presence there was no discussion on Bengaluru city development. But most other ministers have given varying versions on the controversy.
Janata Dal (Secular)’s H.D. Kumaraswamy told reporters that the Karnataka government was being run from “10 Janpath” — the residence of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi — while the BJP said that this was a meeting to discuss “deals”.
“Is this where the ‘85% deals’ are being orchestrated by the #ATMSarkara to raise funds ahead of 2024 Elections (sic)?” wrote BJP.
The “secret meeting” held at Bangalore's Shangri-La Hotel is just another way of ‘Gandhis!’ trying to control Karnataka.
The family have sent their close aide Randeep Surjewala, who neither holds any position at BDA/BBMP nor in the government to decide on Karnataka’s matters.… pic.twitter.com/CTioPhUh0S
— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) June 13, 2023
“We were supposed to meet to discuss Bengaluru issues and the BBMP elections. We had breakfast too. He (Surjewala) came, was there for a few minutes and went off. The discussion on any official matter did not happen when I was there,” an official told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
According to Shivakumar, the officials had come to Shangri-la hotel to take him to the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) office and that there was no official meeting with Surjewala. He even called the hotel a “meeting point” from where the officials would take him to the BDA office and later for inspection of various city junctions, he told reporters Wednesday.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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