Bengaluru: After the swearing-in ceremony the first Cabinet meeting will be held on May 20 at Vidhana Soudha under the leadership of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the presence of Deputy CM D. K. Shiva Kumar and new ministers. The concentration of people of state is not at swearing-in ceremony but on Cabinet meeting as the Congress during its election campaign promised to approve all the five guarantee schemes at first Cabinet meeting.
As people are facing hardships due to price rise of necessary commodities and withdrawing of LPG subsidy by Union Government people are eagerly awaiting decisions at Cabinet meeting.
According to sources all the five guarantees will be approved in the Cabinet meeting. Along with Siddaramaiah and D. K. Shivakumar swearing-in ceremony, around 8 ministers will also take oath. With that, Congress will start ruling the state beginning today.
The first Cabinet meeting will be held at Vidhana Soudha after Congress took charge of the state. The eyes of the people of the state are only on this first Cabinet meeting led by Siddaramaiah, and everyone is curious whether the five guarantees announced by him in the election will be approved in the Cabinet meeting.
Siddaramaiah and DKS have already clarified that five guarantee schemes will be approved in their first Cabinet meeting. According to them, the Gruhalakshmi Scheme which gives ₹ 2,000 per month to the women of the family, the Gruhajyoti Scheme which gives free electricity up to 200 units of household use every month, ₹ 3,000 to graduates and ₹ 1,500 to diploma graduates, youth fund scheme, free government bus travel for women of the state and 10 kg for BPL card holders will be provided. Already Shivakumar has announced that they would approve five schemes in first meeting and would keep up the promise.
In the Cabinet meeting, it is yet to be seen whether the five guarantees would be given substance or whether only the free electricity guarantee, Annabhagya and Grulahakshmi Yojana would be approved. There is a possibility that the rest of the guarantees will be implemented after getting a clear outline from the relevant departments. In the meantime, the fear of applying the conditions to these five guarantees is haunting the people of the state. So everyone has a doubt that whether the guarantees will be approved with the condition in the Cabinet meeting.
Some Congress leaders have already hinted at the imposition of conditions. Many questions have been raised about whether the guarantees will be applicable to all or only to BPL card holders. The Cabinet decision to be held is likely to put a curtain down on all these doubts, worries and questions.
In the swearing-in ceremony to be held on May 20, non-BJP CMs and leaders of other parties will participate in a show of strength against the BJP. Tamil Nadu CM M. K. Stalin, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Bihar DyCM Tejaswi Yadav, NCP Chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra Former CM Uddhav Thackeray, Uttar Pradesh Former CM Akhilesh Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir Former CM Farooq Abdullah, Former Jammu and Kashmir CM Mehbooba Mufti, CPM Leader Sitaram Yechury, and CPI Leader D. Raja will participate in the swearing-in ceremony among others.
It is said that while 8 MLAs will take oath in the swearing-in ceremony, more than 15 people will take oath as ministers in the second phase.
Sources said that Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar went to Delhi and held discussions with the High Command about the ministerial aspirants and finalised the names of around 20-25 ministers. About 30 MLAs went to Delhi and lobbied for the ministerial post. Some have also lobbied through their community leaders. The list of ministerial aspirants is long and the High Command has conducted an exercise to give ministerial position with caste equalisation, region wise and social justice calculation. In addition to this, it is said that new faces are also likely to get ministerships. It has been learned that the Ministership was given based on the equal sharing between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar’s men.