Is life going to become easier for Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar? At least in terms of the attention he has been receiving over the past months from central agencies such as the Income Tax (I-T) Department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI?
At South First we hear this may well be the case. And it will be all thanks to Shivakumar’s mentor in politics, the veteran politician and former Union minister SM Krishna. (The two, incidentally, are now also related as Shivakumar’s daughter is married to Krishna’s grandson.)
SM Krishna, a longtime Congressman who shifted alliance to the BJP in 2017 after feeling ignored in the grand old party, has apparently promised Prime Minister Narendra Modi all help in swaying his Vokkaliga community’s vote in favour of the saffron party in the JD(S) stronghold of Mandya in the April-May Karnataka Assembly polls.
A few weeks before announcing his retirement from active politics on 7 January, the veteran Vokkaliga met the prime minister at his office in Delhi. And that was when he promised the BJP help with Vokkaliga votes in a region the party has been faring poorly.
However, in return, he is believed to have urged Modi to keep the central agencies away from Shivakumar, at least till the Assembly are done with, according to sources in a central agency.
