Cong-JDS will decide on LS seat-sharing in 3 days: Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru, Jan 24: The ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka will take a decision on seat sharing for the coming Lok Sabha elections in three or four days, coalition coordination committee chairman Siddaramaiah said Thursday.
Ruling out any threat to the H D Kumaraswamy-led government amid alleged attempts by the BJP to topple it, the former Chief Minister said both parties will face the polls together.
Preliminary discussions have been held on Lok Sabha elections and a meeting will be held in three or four days to decide on the constituencies, he said.
"keeping in mind the situation in the constituencies, we will decide," Siddaramaiah told reporters after the coordination committee meeting here.
Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda will also be part of that meeting, and it has been decided both parties will go together for the polls, he said.
On seats demanded by JD(S), Siddaramaiah said it has not been discussed.
"we will decide on seats and other things in the next meeting," he said.
Responding to a question about opinion within the Congress not to give up seats where the party has sitting MPs, he said "We have not discussed it."
JD(S) secretary general Danish Ali said "We only started a preliminary discussion on seat sharing, the process will continue and it will take many rounds to have a pre-poll alliance for Lok Sabha seats. It will take some time.
There is no demand, our common motive is to get the maximum seats to the coalition in Karnataka and reduce the BJP to minimum. We will put winning candidate and make him contest," he said.
Their expectation is JD(S)-Congress would win 25 plus out of 28 seats in Karnataka, he said.
JD(S) has already expressed its desire to contest in 12 seats, on which the Congress party has some reservations.
The Congress has said seat sharing will be on 'candidate-merit' basis.
Also, several senior Congress leaders and MPs, including Veerappa Moily, have reportedly asked the leadership not to cede nine seats where the party has its sitting MPs, to JD(S).
There are also voices with in the party not to field sitting MPs in certain constituencies.
In the 2014 polls, the BJP had won 17 seats in the state, the Congress nine and JD(S) two seats.
Siddaramaiah said the meeting also discussed recent political developments in the state,.
"There is no situation that will cause any threat to the government," he asserted.
Pointing out that as CLP leader he had called a legislature party meeting and four MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli, had skipped the meeting to whom notices were issued, he said, "out of them three have responded."
"Nagendra has sent his response yesterday, today Ramesh and Mahesh have responded, one more Umesh Jadhav is yet to respond..
Nagendra's response I have seen, he has said he is loyal to the party and because of some case hearing in court, he could not respond. He has not met BJP leaders among other things."
"Other two responses Im yet to see.. after seeing the other replies, we will decide on what action to be taken," Siddaramaiah added.
Terming the alleged brawl between two MLAs Ganesh and Anand Singh at a resort here as "unwanted incident", Siddaramaiah said it will not reflect on the whole government.
"I'm not defending this quarrel between two MLAs, I have said let law take its course. Our party has also taken action already. An inquiry committee has also been formed under the Chairmanship of Deputy Chief Minister.
Both disciplinary and criminal action have also been initiated," he said.
Ruling out any 'operation lotus', the former Chief Minister said it was only a creation of the BJP "because of their illusion, by offering power and money."
On reports about BJP planning to bring no-trust motion against the coalition government during the coming assembly session, he said, "let them do whatever they want, we are ready to face. They have already failed miserably once."
Noting that the meeting also discussed the budget that is slated to be presented on February 8, Siddaramaiah said, "there is common minimum programme, keeping it as the base budget will be prepared."
On appointment of Chairmans to few boards and corporations that has been held back like Venkataramanaiah to KRDCL, Sudhakar for Pollution Control Board and Gopala Swamy as parliamentary Secretary, Siddaramaiah said "We have asked the Chief Minister to issue the orders, he will consider it."
"There are few more MLAs whom we will recommend to boards and corporations, we have requested the Chief Minister to issue the orders to them at the earliest, he said, adding that issues of some MLAs on constituency and development related works have also been discussed.
The coordination committee discussed the drought situation in the state and steps being taken by the government to manage the situation, Siddaramaiah said.
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A 99-run loss is unacceptable: Hayden blames batting horror
Ahmedabad (PTI): Gujarat Titans' batting coach Matthew Hayden was scathing about their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians, blaming a "horror" batting display and poor death bowling for the heavy loss in the IPL.
From being 44/3 in 5.5 overs, MI hammered 73 runs in the last four overs to post a challenging 199/5 here on Monday. In reply, GT were bundled out for 100.
"I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit," the legendary Australian opener told media in the post-match interaction.
"It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada's performance with the ball. so we've got some work to do, definitely."
GT boast a strong batting line-up in Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538). They have also added New Zealand’s explosive Glenn Phillips in the middle order alongside Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia.
"When you look down at our batting line-up, we've got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise...
"So you can't be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!"
The 54-year-old said GT lost the game in the powerplay.
"Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they're coming in with six overs, you know that you're in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can't win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play," he said.
Shahrukh (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia (49 off 42) have not fared well this season and Hayden feels the duo along with Phillips (67 off 54 balls) have been struggling because the top order has been below its best.
"The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips -- his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you'll take that all day long in the majority of games," Hayden said.
"However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion's share of the batting. We shouldn't be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That's not their role. That's not what they train for."
Hayden said GT has an aggressive and adaptable unit but their execution fell apart on the day.
"We are a very good thinking batting unit. We're not a conservative batting unit. You don't go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they're an adaptive batting unit. ...they've got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn't.
"So the worry isn't just today about the middle order. It'd be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking."
It was poorly executed bowling effort
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Hayden also pointed to poor execution in the death overs.
"I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.
"When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a 'horror story' -- 73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance... It was purely an executional thing."
He added that GT were below par with the ball on a surface that didn’t fully justify the high total.
"We're very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.
"When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it's a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That's been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn't that wicket (199/5)... It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.
"So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn't a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision."
Hayden said the chase was still within reach but poor shot selection proved costly.
"And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.
"And it wasn't an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings."
