Bangalore, Oct 14: KPCC president B Janardhana Poojary today sought to play down the controversy over the leadership issue for the next assembly elections in the state declaring it was the "prerogative of the congress high command" to decide it. "Ultimately, it is the Congress High Command that will name the captain and Congress has only one leader, that is party president Sonia Gandhi", he told reporters here, a day after senior leader and party MP C K Jaffer Sharief expressed dissent on Chief Minister S M Krishna leading the party in the next assembly polls.
Poojary defended the statement of Sharief at a minorities function here yesterday that the person to lead the elections would be named by the high command, saying "he (Sharief) is correct".
In the same breath, he also did not find fault with the statement made by Public Works Minister Dharam Singh who declared at Bijapur on Sunday that Krishna would lead the Congress in next year's elections, describing it as his "personal opinion".
Singh, overwhelmed by the turnout of people at the public meeting addressed by Krishna at Bijapur last week, must have made the statement out of "excitement", Poojary said.
The Congress would fight the elections under the leadership of its workers and Krishna had already endorsed it, Poojary said adding that "we will go before the people on the basis of achievements of the Krishna government".
Sharief had publicly expressed his dissent over Singh's statement on Krishna leading the party.
Bureau Report