Bengaluru
Amid growing political speculation in Karnataka, BJP legislator Shivaram Hebbar met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday, following in the footsteps of fellow BJP legislator S T Somashekar who recently held a meeting with the CM. These meetings have triggered talks of possible turncoats returning to Congress. Hebbar, the Arabail MLA, engaged in discussions with Siddaramaiah for approximately half an hour. His meeting with the Chief Minister occurred a day after he arrived in Bengaluru. While the BJP leadership has maintained that no legislators will leave the party, there have been persistent rumors of some BJP members considering a switch to the Congress. The political landscape in Karnataka has been dynamic, with the BJP aiming to secure the loyalty of the Bombay Boys, a group of legislators who defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2019, leading to the fall of the JD(S)-Congress coalition government. State-level BJP leaders have been actively engaging with legislators who are reportedly contemplating a move to the Congress. The meetings with Somashekar and Hebbar have only intensified speculation about potential shifts in the state’s political alignment.