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New Delhi: In Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s government, 24 MLAs will take oath as ministers on Saturday. According to sources, the names have been finalized in a meeting held in Delhi between CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar and central leaders of the party. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will meet Rahul Gandhi on Friday.
On 20 May, Siddaramaiah was sworn in as Chief Minister and State Congress President DK Shivakumar as Deputy Chief Minister. Along with this, eight MLAs including Priyank Kharge, son of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, also took oath as ministers.
The Congress high command had approved the first list of eight ministers, while the initial plan was to include around 28 MLAs in the cabinet. Sources said that the names of only those MLAs were approved, who represented all classes and were senior most, then no objection was raised about their names.
It is said that Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are promoting the names of their close MLAs for ministerial posts. However, no allocation of portfolios has been done so far. Keeping in view the balancing and representation of different communities, preparing the list of ministers and allocation of portfolios is a challenging task for the Congress.
Lingayats, the politically most important community in the state, had staked claim for the chief minister’s post, citing their huge contribution to the Congress victory. But in case the Chief Minister is not made from the Lingayat community, there is speculation that a large portion of the ministerial posts may go to the MLAs belonging to the Lingayat community.
Let me tell you, the top leaders of the Congress have asked the state Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Church on Thursday with Sivakumar.
Both these leaders along with Congress’ Karnataka in-charge Randeep Surjewala, party general secretary (organisation) K.C. Met Venugopal. Thereafter, he had separate meetings with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence. Thereafter, Surjewala along with Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar held a meeting at the party’s Gurdwara Rakabganj Road office and discussed the names that could be included in the expanded state cabinet.
