Tihar link to DK Shivakumar's Delhi visit amid Karnataka drama

KArnataka surrogate chief government minister DK Shivakumar flew into new delhi on midweek, a daytime after his second breakfast meeting with chief minister Siddaramaiah amid a tussle for the top position in the state.But the agenda of the trip was not more political meetings, but attending the wedding of a former bureaucrat's son. The Congress leader had befriended the former bureaucrat during his nearly 50-day stint in Tihar jail in 2019 on corruption allegations, people aware of the matter told HT.According to a person from Shivakumar’s team who didn’t want to be named, after landing at 3pm in the national capital, Shivakumar was set to attend the wedding of former Haryana IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar. Initially a whistle-blower, Kumar spent a decade in jail in connection with the state teacher recruitment scam, in which former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala was the main accused. Kumar was released in 2021 after finishing his jail term. Shivakumar and Kumar kept in touch, said the person cited above.Before his departure, Shivakumar said he was travelling to Delhi to attend a wedding. He also mentioned plans for a discussion at the Congress headquarters regarding a grand event on December 14 at Delhi’s Ramleela Maidan on ‘Vote Chori’ (vote theft) campaign.“On December 14, ‘Vote Chori’ event is happening in Delhi. So we are taking at least 300 workers from each district to Delhi. We have to take part in large numbers. I have told the district units to make arrangements to take them to Delhi,” Shivakumar told the media before flying to Delhi.In Karnataka, Siddaramaiah reached Mangaluru to take part in an event to commemorate the centenary of social reformer Sri Narayana Guru’s meeting with Mahatma Gandhi.Congress general secretary K C Venugopal also attended the Mangaluru event. Later, Siddaramaiah had a meeting and a lunch with Venugopal.When reporters pointed out that Shivakumar was going to Delhi, Siddaramaiah replied, “Let him go. Has anyone said no to him?” Asked if he would go, he firmly said, “I will go only when I am invited. I was not invited, so I am not going.” He added that if there is any direction from the party high command for a meeting in Delhi, it would be conveyed through Venugopal.Shivakumar was lodged in Tihar jail after he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on September 3, 2019 in a money laundering case. He was released on October 23 after the Delhi high court granted him bail. Shivakumar has often talked about the unfairness of his incarceration and said he was jailed for not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, a charge refuted by the party.