Siddu: Ibrahim will return to Congress

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Congress Legislature Party Leader Siddaramaiah has expressed confidence that party MLC and former Union minister C.M. Ibrahim who quit the Congress on Thursday, would return to the party soon.

“I know him very well...he prepares biryani and invites me to his house. .. he is a very good friend”, Siddaramiah told the media here on Friday. He said no one can feel orphaned as long as he/ she has the support of the people. Such statements of Ibrahim must not be taken seriously. “According to me Ibrahim will not quit the Congress and join the JD(S). He knows quite well that it was former PM H.D. Deve Gowda who denied him the Rajya Sabha nomination. I will talk to him and convince him. He knows that the Congress will come back to power next year. Ibrahim is one of those who advised me to contest from Badami in the 2018 Assembly polls”.

Siddaramaiah also referred to recent critical statements of Energy and Kannada and Culture Minister K Sunilkumar and stressed on the difference between ‘Hindu’ and Hindutva. In 2013, the Congress had won seven seats and the BJP one in Dakshina Kannada district. So, it is not a fortress of the BJP, he added.