Karnataka: Ministerial aspirants race to Delhi ahead of CM Siddaramaiah
BENGALURU/MYSURU: With Chief Minister Siddaramaiah set to discuss the much-delayed exercise of a reshuffle of his ministry with top Congress leaders during his visit to New Delhi on Wednesday, scores of aspirants have already rushed to the national capital to lobby for cabinet berths. More than a dozen legislators, including former minister K.B. Koliwad, A. Manju, Manohar Tahsildar, M.R. Seetharam, Shivamurthy Nayak, and party chief whip in the Legislative Assembly, Ashok Pattan, have landed in Delhi.
Speaking to DC, a senior leader who accompanied an aspirant disclosed that the objective of the legislators reaching Delhi ahead of Mr Siddaramaiah was to ensure that they get more time to spend with the leaders on his arrival in Delhi. “In the absence of Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, Digvijay Singh, leaders in Delhi do not entertain anybody from the state. Even if we manage to meet them, all they will say is to wait for Mr Singh’s arrival. Let us see what he intends to do, and I will surely recommend your name for the cabinet are two stock replies to us. But in reality, we have come here just to have a detailed discussion with Mr Siddaramaiah who will be in Delhi for three days. He will neither be surrounded by his cronies nor bureaucrats, so we will get more time to discuss about our chances with him,” he added.
Meanwhile, the list of aspirants grew longer with leaders of women’s wing joining the race for a place in the ministry. Speaking at KPCC women’s convention here, party leader C. Motamma demanded that discrimination in allotment of cabinet berths to women must stop. “The party and its leaders must consider us (women) as equal partners, but always ignore us. Even if they allot a cabinet berth, the portfolio of women and child welfare is given to us. Are we not capable of handling key portfolios like home or finance?” she said. Concurring with her views, KPCC president Dr G. Parameshwar said Mr Siddaramaiah had not discussed anything about a reshuffle of the cabinet. Therefore, he was not aware of what was on Mr Siddaramaiah’s mind.
No hassles, will expand cabinet: confident Siddaramaiah
Ministerial aspirants and their supporters tailed CM Siddaramaiah to this city and swarmed his residence at Sharardadevi Nagar on Tuesday, but the leader was decidedly cool saying he would be expand his ministry without any hassles.
Among those who rushed to the Chief Minister’s residence were supporters of Periyapatna MLA K Venkatesh and Malavalli MLA Narendraswamy. They demanded inclusion of their leaders in the ministry.
Speaking to the media later, Mr Siddaramaiah said “We are going to Delhi on Wednesday to attend a meeting on ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission. I am going alone, but KPCC president Dr Parameshwar might join me. We will meet the high command, and discuss about the cabinet expansion.” He, however, felt he would be able to fend off pressure from various lobbies during the expansion. “There are aspirants. It is common in democracy. There is no problem in handling the cabinet expansion,” he added.
Asked whether the alliance between Congress and JD(S) would be restricted to BBMP, he answered in the affirmative. On whether the government was keen on Raichur for IIT, he said: “Raichur is a backward area which comes in Hyderabad-Karnataka region. It is being given special status following implementation of Article 371(J). Dharwad was chosen for IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology). We are only hoping that Raichur gets either of them. We had sent names of three cities for IIT, with Raichur at the top, followed by Mysuru and Dharwad” he said.
