Bengaluru: The drama over putting together a working government in Vidhana Soudha – the seat of political power appears to be getting more complicated as days go by. The Government should have been in the seat by now but even after nearly a fortnight, the Congress party is tottering to form the Government despite getting a brutal majority in the recent election to the Assembly. Till now only the Chief Minister, his deputy and the speaker have taken their positions, but both CM and his deputy are yet to get their portfolios.
According to the first information available to the Verito.today, the Congress party has tried very hard to arrive at a ‘social justice’ angle by distributing Cabinet spaces for all communities. The probable in the ministry of Siddaramiah are -Ishwara Khandre (Bhalki), Sivananda Patil (Basavanbagewadi) in Lingayat community, Sharanbasappa Darshanapura (Shahapur) in Reddy Lingayat community, Lakshmi Hebbalkar (Belagavi Rural) and S. S. Mallikarjuna (Davanagere North) in Panchamasali community have won ministerial post.
Dr. M. C l. Sudhakar (Chintamani), Cheluvarayaswamy (Nagamangala), K. Venkatesh (Piriyapattana) have been given ministerial position in Viokkaliga community.
Nagendra (Ballari Rural) in ST community, Narendra Swamy (Malavalli), Shivraj Thangadagi (Kanakagiri) in Bovi community, and Byrati Suresh (Hebbal) in Kuruba Samaj have got ministerial position.
Rahim Khan from Muslim community (Bidar), D. Sudhakar from Jain community (Hiriyur), and Ajay Singh from Rajput community (Jewargi) are likely in the list. Information has been received that Puttaranga Shetty (Chamarajanagara), ans Mankala Vaidya (Bhatkal) from Mogaveera community have been finalised for ministership.
Besides, not only the senior MLAs of the Congress but also the influential Congress MLAs have discussed whether they should be made ministers this time or not. Mainly, the High Command has placed five people on the 50-50 list. Krishnabyre Gowda (Battarayanapura), who served as Agriculture, Law and Rural Development Minister, Santhosh Lad (Kalghatagi), Information Technology Minister in Janata Dal, MLC Srinivas Mane (Hanagal), Soraba MLA Madhu Bangarappa; and Basavaraj Rayareddy (Yalabarga), who served as Higher Education Minister, are likely to get ministerial berths.
The party has kept away the members of the upper Hindu castes from getting any posts of power. However, the functionaries of the party point out that there is no support base for the Congress party in the upper Hindu caste. R. V. Deshpande is the last leader belonging to the Brahmin community, and he is over 80 years.
The rumour mill has it, that Priyank Kharge may be made the Home Minister of Karnataka following his display of intense dislike for pro-Hindutva organisations, and he has already talked about banning Bajrang Dal, RSS, and all other arms of Hindtuva. How vigorously will the Congress Government will implement its anti-Hindutva agenda remains to be seen.