Civic poll: Cong smarting under rebel's blow

tumkur: the congress has decided to recommend the expulsion of t.p. manjunath, the rebel candidate who walked into the office of tumkur city municipal council handing down a debilitating defeat to the party's official candidate siddalinge gowda in monday's elections. ever since the party's official candidate bit the dust, leaders of four town block congress committees on tuesday went into a huddle at the office of lok sabha member g.s.basavaraju and unanimously agreed on the ouster of manjunath. weighed down by the defeat, siddalinge gowda staggered out of the meeting hall, fainted and collapsed in front of the party supporters. he was rushed to the heart hospital and was discharged later in the day. manjunath achieved his coup de grace with support from the 11-member bjp and six-member janata dal (united). manjunath has been the member of the house for three consecutive terms and is a staunch supporter of k.n. rajanna, mlc. t.c. kalpana was elected vice-president. the house has 35 members and the election had thrown up a fractured verdict. the four independents had pledged support to the congress. after the hurriedly called meeting, mp basavaraju sought to put the blame on rajanna, whom he described as ``the enemy from within''. narrating the sequence of events, he said rajanna had done a brutus by stabbing the party in the back and restraining cmc member shashikala of the jd(s) from attending the meeting that elected president and vice-president of the city municipal council on monday. rajanna and shashikala belong to the same community. the congress had roped in the seven-member janata dal (secular), besides four independents, taking the strength to 19 in a bid to get absolute majority. ``that's the reason why we lost the race by a slender margin of one vote,'' basavaraju said. the parliamentarian said the chief minister, holidaying in goa, had been apprised of developments. ``we'll urge the cm to see that rajanna will not enjoy official positions (such as the post of apex bank president), which were the alms offered by the congress to him.'' a meeting had been convened at the residence of t.b. jayachandra to chalk out the future course of action. sources said that for a long time rajanna wanted to contest the lok sabha elections from chitradurga constituency from a party other than the congress. his political manoeuvring might doom the chances of his wife shanthala, a budding politician and now a member of the tumkur zilla panchayat. the day the results were to be announced, she was projected as the future president of zilla panchayat by her supporters as rajanna had gained an upper hand over the party's nominee. the sources said while the action of rajanna will cast its shadow on his wife's career, the recommendation of the administrative reforms commission that the 20-month term of zp presidents be extended to 30 months would not have come at a more inopportune moment.