If Cong high command has to decide on leadership, they should do it before Feb: Parameshwara
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday said that if the Congress high command has to decide anything on the leadership issue, they should do it before the budget preparation in February.
He said, whether the leadership should be changed or not will be decided by the Congress high command.
"The budget preparation will begin in February, Roughly one more month. If the high command has to decide anything on this issue, they should decide before that," Parameshwara said in response to a question on the leadership issue.
Speaking to reporters here, he said, "Someone will have to prepare the budget, right? The budget has to be presented based on the assurance we have given to the people of the state. It will be done."
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To a question regarding some people staging a demonstration in Delhi, during the recent Congress Working Committee meeting, demanding that Prameshwara be made the CM, the Home minister said, "Those who say that Prameshwara should become CM, they would have said it out of affection towards me. How can I tell them not to say such things? You seem to be suggesting that I should tell them not to say such things."
On reports of a team of Congress leaders meeting AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal in Delhi, with a demand to make Parameshwara CM in case of leadership change, he said, "The Congress high command will have all the information. They will take information from the general secretary, and they also gather information in their own way."
"They know what has to be decided and when. Whether the leadership should be changed or not. All of this will be decided by them," he added.
Parameshwara, who had served as state Congress chief in the past, had himself last month said that he too was in the race to become the CM. Also, there has been demand for a "Dalit CM" within the Congress in case of leadership change, with Parameshwara as one of the prime contenders.
There have been speculations within the party circles too about Siddaramaiah's faction preferring Parameshwara or other senior leaders among them for the CM post, in case of any changes.
Asked about Congress MLA Iqbal Hussain's statement that there is a 200 per cent chance for Deputy CM D K Shivakumar to become the chief minister of the state on January 6 or 9, Parameshwara jokingly said, "Once Iqbal Hussain has said it is final. Whether I accept it or not is not the question."
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Amid the leadership issue, Siddaramaiah, on December 19, had asserted on the floor of the Assembly that he would continue in office. He had also said that the Congress high command was in his favour and asserted that no decision was made on his staying at the helm for only two-and-a-half years.
Reacting to this, Shivakumar had said that he and CM Siddaramaiah have come to an agreement with the involvement of the Congress high command, and both of them will abide by it.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
