A meeting of the newly elected Karnataka Congress MLAs was held on Friday evening at the Taj Krishna in Banjara Hills.
The MLAs are being sheltered in the hotel to prevent them from being being lured by the BJP in its efforts to form the government in the state.
JD(S) MLAs too are in Hyderabad - they are being lodged in the Novotel Hotel in Hitec City.
Former Karnataka CM and Karnataka Congress head Siddaramaiah along with senior AICC Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijaya Singh, K J George and others arrived in Hyderabad by a special flight this evening for the meeting. The leaders all drove from the airport straight to the Taj Krishna for the CLP meeting organized by Siddaramaiah.
With rumours spreading about the BJP planning to use the caste card as its weapon to lure the MLAs belonging to the Lingayat community in the Congress, Siddaramaiah convened the CLP meeting at a short notice to impress upon the party legislators the need to remain united and not get swayed by any offers of the saffron party.
Speculation is rife that many of the MLAs in the Congress belonging to the Lingayat community were not happy about the party joining hands with JD(S) chief H D Kumaraswamy, a Vokkaliga, to defeat B S Yeddyurappa of the BJP, who belongs to Lingayat community and has been sworn in as Chief Minister. The Lingayat MLAs are stated to be still nurturing a grouse against Kumaraswamy, who as Chief Minister in the past had broken a power-sharing promise and ditched Yeddyurappa.
Against this backdrop, Siddaramaiah is understood have impressed upon his party MLAs that it would be the Congress-JD(S) alliance that would come to power in Karnataka and not the BJP, and that leaving the party at this juncture would hurt them.