Wrangling ends as Congress yields the coveted portfolio of finance to JD(S). The two partners will also contest 2019 general elections together.
Bengaluru: Karnataka is set to get a cabinet next week, after the Congress conceded the contested finance portfolio to resolve a week-long stalemate with ally JD(S).
Chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Congress general secretary in charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal met governor Vajubhai Vala Friday to seek a date for the cabinet expansion by Sunday.
“The cabinet expansion will take place on 6 June,” said chief minister Kumaraswamy at a joint press conference in Bengaluru.
Venugopal announced the list of portfolios at the press meet. Besides finance, the JD(S) will get excise, power and PWD among others. In exchange, Congress will keep home, Bengaluru city development, sugar, water resources, rural development and housing portfolios. Within the home ministry, the intelligence unit, however, will be with the chief minister.
The two parties have also decided to fight the 2019 general elections as a pre-poll alliance.
A two-man army of Kumaraswamy and his deputy, Congress leader G. Parameshwara, have been running the state since the coalition sailed through a trust vote on 24 May to assume office.
The bone of contention
The much-coveted finance portfolio is said to have been the reason behind the delay in Cabinet formation.
While most of the discussions happened at the “top level” in Delhi, the consensus was attributed to former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda’s “deft handling” of the matter.
Deve Gowda represented the JD(S) in negotiations with a Congress team comprising senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Venugopal. Party president Rahul Gandhi, who left the country last weekend to accompany his mother for a medical check-up, tuned in through video conferencing Thursday, which is when the final portfolio allocation was reportedly decided.
Sources privy to the discussions said Kumaraswamy argued that he needed to be in charge of finance so he could fulfil his commitment to waive farmers’ loans, while the Congress cited precedent, saying finance had gone to the deputy chief minister in the coalition governments of 2004 and 2006.
The mediator
Deve Gowda intervened, explaining the need to keep the farmers on their side, and away from the BJP, by fulfilling the waiver promise. The Congress was repeatedly reminded that it had offered the JD(S) “unconditional support” and told it should not go back on its word if it wanted to be in power.
After nearly five rounds of discussions, the Congress reluctantly yielded the finance portfolio to the JD(S).
JD(S) sources said Kumaraswamy’s brother Revanna had been vying for two portfolios, power (energy) and the public works department, but the Congress wanted the former for veteran leader D.K. Shivakumar.
Shivakumar, a senior Congressman said, “was a ringmaster during the discussions (for the alliance). He ensured that the Congress MLAs stuck together and he would be suitably rewarded for his efforts”.
Sources said the portfolio wishlist drafted by the Congress had miffed the JD(S) initially, as the party had sought to keep all the plum departments to itself and leave the likes of horticulture and sericulture to its ally.
JD(S) spokesperson Danish Ali told ThePrint that the portfolio allocation would be spelt out in writing so that a stable government can be ensured, dismissing rumours that the state was set for two deputy chief ministers.