Bengaluru: Eight Congress legislators took oath along with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, Saturday in Bengaluru.
Siddaramaiah took oath as the state’s 34th CM and Shivakumar as his deputy for the first time in his career.
The MLAs inducted in the Cabinet includes senior leaders such as G. Parameshwara, K.H. Muniyappa, K.J. George, M.B. Patil, Satish Jarkiholi and Ramalinga Reddy. Priyank Kharge, the three-time legislator and son of Congress national president, Mallikarjun Kharge, has made the cut, and so has four-time MLA B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru Saturday, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge said, “It is a happy occasion that a new Congress government will be formed in Karnataka, a strong government.
“There are eight MLAs who will also be sworn in along with the CM and deputy CM. This (new government) will be good for Karnataka and a good environment has been created for the entire country.”
Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and the eight others took oath in the presence of several national leaders and CMs of other states.
The Congress is trying to stitch together a national level alliance to fight Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, CMs of other states, including Nitish Kumar, M.K. Stalin, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Bhupesh Baghel, and leaders such as Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, D. Raja, Sitaram Yechury and others were in attendance.
Sonia Gandhi, the former president of the Congress, gave the event a miss but Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the swearing-in.
Party workers and the general public gathered at the Sri Kanteerava Stadium to witness Siddaramaiah taking over as the CM for the second time.
If sources are to be believed, several senior leaders have camped in Delhi and are lobbying with the national leadership to secure a Cabinet berth. There are 36 Cabinet berths in the state.
In its first list, the Congress has tried to include all sections of its support base to contain any dissent. “Negotiations are still going on and more names will be released in the coming days,” said one Congress leader, requesting not to be named.
Also read: In Karnataka, round one went to Siddaramaiah but ‘eventual successor’ Shivakumar won’t cede
All-inclusive?
Among the inductees, Parameshwara and Kharge are part of communities classified as SC-Right and Muniyappa is from the SC-Left.
K.J. George is a Christian and Khan is a Muslim, representing the minorities. Satish Jarkiholi is from the dominant Valmiki community, classified as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in Karnataka. M.B. Patil is from the dominant Lingayat community while Ramalinga Reddy is from the Reddy community that is classified as a part of the larger Vokkaliga group.
Siddaramaiah is from the backward Kuruba community and Shivakumar is a Vokkaliga.
Shivakumar has also been offered 4-6 key portfolios apart from retaining the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief post until the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, said party sources.
The Congress won 135 of the 224 assembly seats in the 10 May elections but the government formation was delayed after Siddaramaiah, and Shivakumar remained steadfast in their respective claims to be made CM. This dragged the process in Karnataka before it shifted to Delhi.
There were protests in some regions of the state as their respective leaders were not part of the first list of Cabinet ministers. Parameshwara and others had demanded that there be a deputy CM from the Dalit community as well as the group had voted in a big way for the Congress. The Lingayats and Muslims had made similar demands.
Senior Congress leaders such as Parameshwara and M.B. Patil were hoping to be made the deputy CMs, said party insiders, but Shivakumar was insistent on not sharing the post with anyone.
Meanwhile, several senior leaders were left out of the first list. Notable among them are U.T. Khader, the former deputy Leader of the Opposition and legislator from Dakshina Kannada, R.V. Deshpande, one of Karnataka’s longest serving legislators, Krishna Byre Gowda, T.B. Jayachandra, Dinesh Gundu Rao and H.C. Mahadevappa.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Also read: Congress makes inroads in most Karnataka divisions, eats into BJP, JD(S) votes