Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar meet Kharge, Rahul

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday and reviewed ways to strengthen the state government policies to ensure social justice and economic empowerment of people of the state. Party sources said alleged attempts to "destabilise" the Karnataka government by the BJP were also discussed.There was also a discussion on how Karnataka has been allegedly sidelined in the Union Budget.
Rahul Gandhi, during his meeting, asked the two leaders to work together and run the state government in coordination.The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha emphasised the need to strengthen the party.He also asked the leaders to look at the reasons behind the party's performance in Karnataka in the recent Lok Sabha elections, and why it failed to win as many seats as it was expecting and work in that direction.
Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, took to social media platform X and said that they discussed several issues during the meeting with Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders. "Lok Sabha held a meeting with Leaders of Opposition@RahulGandhi, AICC General Secretaries @kcvenugopalmp, @rssurjewalaat the residence of AICC President@kharge and discussed various issues. DCM @DKShivakumar was with me at this time," Siddarmaiah said in his post.
DK Shivakumar posted, "I and the Chief Minister today met AICC President Mr. @kharge, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mr. @RahulGandhi and AICC General Secretaries Mr. @kcvenugopalmp and Mr. @rssurjewala in New Delhi and discussed many issues."
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won only nine out of 28 seats in Karnataka. BJP, which was ousted from power in the state a year ago, won 17 seats. Janata Dal-Secular, on the other hand, won two seats. Although, Congress improved on its 2019 performance, where it could only win one seat, the performance was below the expectations of the party leadership.