Bengaluru: The year does not appear to have begun fortuitously for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Thursday saw senior Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge spend an hour with KPCC president, Dr G Parameshwar in a closed door meeting, leading to speculation that the two were drawing up a strategy to take him on.

Dr Parameshwar, who hopes to bag a prominent post in the state cabinet, visited Mr Kharge and former external affairs minister, S.M. Krishna to greet them on New Year with his wife Kannika in tow, but his courtesy call turned into a political meeting, according to sources.

The two men are said to have discussed the present developments in the party and the government and also dwelt on the frequent outbursts of Congress legislators against ministers in the Congress Legislative Party meetings.

Several Congress MLAs are reportedly unhappy with Mr Siddaramaiah’s Ahinda slant and his promotion of Congress leaders, who joined the party from the Janata parivar.

Many of these issues came up at the meeting, according to sources close to the KPCC chief. The Arkavathi denotification scam and the controversial move to amend the Karnataka Religious and Charitable Endowments Act to allow government takeover of maths were also reportedly discussed.

However, emerging from the meeting, Dr. Parameshwar told reporters, “Mr. Kharge is like my elder brother and I wished him good luck to take on the NDA government at the Centre.

In turn Mr Kharge also wished me good luck in 2015. It was just a personal meeting .” Mr. Kharge , for his part , said he was ready to take on any responsibility given to him by the high command, even if it meant returning to state politics.