Shiva, Shiva! Is it Siddaramaiah?

New Delhi: Chief Minister aspirant and Karnataka state Congress president DK Shivakumar on Monday cancelled his Delhi trip, hours after confirming he would be flying to the national capital, fuelling speculations that all is not well in the ruling camp over the CM contender issue. He cited health reasons for the change in his travel plans. The senior Congress leader is locked in an intense power struggle with Siddaramaiah over who will lead the party-led government, after Congress stormed to power by winning 135 seats in the May 10 elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly. Siddaramaiah, a former CM, had left for Delhi by Monday afternoon to meet with AICC leaders.

"I have some stomach problems. Doctor is coming in ten minutes. It's burning. It looks like some infection and I have a fever..... Please let me be free...." Shivakumar told reporters. Shivakumar said his strength is 135, as under his presidency, the party won the said number of seats in the Assembly polls.

Siddaramaiah had left for Delhi earlier in the day. Pointing out that CLP has passed a single line resolution leaving it to high command to decide on the Chief Minister, the KPCC chief said, "Under my leadership 135 MLAs -- all of them with one voice have said that the matter should be left to high command."

After holding discussions with newly-elected Congress MLAs in Bengaluru, the party's three central observers met its president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence here on Monday evening and held deliberations over government formation in Karnataka.

Sushilkumar Shinde, Jitendra Singh and Deepak Babaria met Kharge along with general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal and general secretary in-charge for Karnataka Randeep Surjewala.

The six top leaders discussed the report of the observers and the views of newly-elected MLAs elicited by the three during one-on-one interactions with the new legislators held in Bengaluru late on Sunday night. Sources said the observers apprised the Congress president of the views of MLAs on the new chief minister and the government formation in Karnataka.

They added the Congress leadership has called both Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar for further discussions and the former has already arrived in the national capital.