Bengaluru, 30 Dec

Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday said that if the Congress High Command has to decide anything on the leadership issue, they should do it before the budget preparation in February.

Speaking to reporters in the City, he said, “Someone will have to prepare the budget, right? The budget has to be presented based on the assurance we have given to the people of the state. It will be done.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, amid speculations about leadership change, had last month asserted that he would present his record 17th Budget next year.

To a question regarding some people staging a demonstration in Delhi, during the recent Congress Working Committee meeting, demanding that Parameshwara be made the CM, the Home Minister said, “Those who say that Parameshwara should become CM, they would have said it out of affection towards me. How can I tell them not to say such things?”

On reports of a team of Congress leaders meeting AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal in Delhi, with a demand to make Parameshwara CM in case of leadership change, he said, “The High Command will have all the information.”