Gabriel Vaz
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, May 27: In a late night development, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who returned from Delhi after holding series of discussions with Congress party high command, has sent a list of 24 ministers to be inducted into his 10-member cabinet to the Governor and the swearing in ceremony of the ministers will be held at Raj Bhavan on Saturday morning at 11.45 am.
The Congress party, which secured absolute majority by winning 135 out of the 224 seats in the Assembly, had already formed the government with Siddaramaiah and KPCC Chief D K Shivakumar as chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively along with 8 ministers.
With the new addition of 24 ministers, the size of the Siddaramaiah cabinet will reach the full quota of 34 ministers in the cabinet that Karnataka is entitled. The list includes Belagavi leader Lakshmi R Hebbalkar as the lone woman in the Cabinet.
The 24 Ministers
The 24 leaders, who will be inducted, on Saturday are:
H K Patil, C Krishna Byregowda, N Cheluvarayaswamy, K Venkatesh, Dr H C Mahadevappa, Eshwar Khandre, K N Rajanna, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Sharanappa Darshanapur, Shivanand Patil, R B Thimmapur, S S Mallikarjun, Shivaraj Sangappa Thagadagi, Dr Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil, Mankal Vaidya, Laxmi R Hebbalkar, Rahim Khan, D Sudhakar, Santhosh S Lad, N S Boseraju, B S Suresha, Madhu Bangarappa, Dr M C Sudhakar and B Nagendra.
Social Justice, Regional Representation
The names of the 24 new ministers along with the 10, including the chief minister and deputy chief minister, who have been already inducted represents that the Siddaramaiah cabinet will give full justice to the Congress principle of upholding Social Justice and Regional Representation, which was not evident during the earlier BJP regime.
Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, who haggled with the Central party leadership including AICC chief Mallikarjuna Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as also held series of discussions with AICC leaders K C Venugopal, Randeep Singh Surjewala and Sushil Kumar Shinde, have managed to ensure that most of their staunch supporters are accommodated in the cabinet.
It is notable that many of the senior leaders such as Dinesh Gundu Rao and C Krishna Byregowda, both of whom hail from the city, along with N Cheluvarayaswamy, Dr H C Mahadevappa, S S Mallikarjun, who is son of the veteran Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarapa, Madhu Bangarapa, N S Boseraju, Santhosh Lad, Shivananda Patil and Sharanappa Darshanapur have found themselves in the cabinet.
Siginifacantly, the party has chosen C Puttarangasetty as the new Deputy Speaker with U T Khader already elected as the Speaker of the Assembly.
Thus, there is unlikely to be any resentment or disgruntlement at the lack of representation considering that Karnataka can only have 34 cabinet berths and cannot accommodate all the aspirants. The full cabinet is also a mix of the young and old leaders.
Significantly, the Siddaramaiah cabinet has taken care to ensure that it has given adequate regional representation to entire Karnataka, which was emphasized by Rahul Gandhi. The regions of Kittur Karnataka, Kalayana Karnataka as well as the region of Mumbai Karnataka from the North Karnataka areas, as well as Malnad, coastal regions, Old Mysuru and Central Karnataka regions have also got adequate representation.
With this, the Congress party has ensured that it has crossed the major hurdle of cabinet formation and giving adequate representation to all regions, communities while ensuring social justice- the main plank of the party.
However, the allocation of portfolios, which is expected in the next couple of days is another major challenge.
Dalits, Lingayats, Vokkaligas Dominate
Given the fact the Congress owes its massive mandate to the sold backing extended by the Dalits, particularly scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, along with the politically powerful Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities, it is natural that these communities find predominant place in the cabinet.
The Lingayat community has a total of 8 cabinet berths in M B Patil, Ishwar Khandre, Laxmi Hebbalkar, Shivanand Patil, S S Mallikarjun, Sharan Prakash Patil Darshanapur H K Patil. Interestingly all the prominent sub-castes among Lingayats have found a place in the cabinet, which eliminates any cause for resentment.
With Shivakumar being the prominent face among the Vokkaligas, the community has 5 slots with Chedulvarayaswamy, Periyapatna Venkatesh, M C Sudhakar and Krishna Byregowda.
As was expected, the Dalit communities have got the lion’s share of 9 cabinet slots: They include K H Muniyappa, G Parameshwar, H C Mahadevappa, R B Thimmapur and Priyank Kharge from the SC quota from both the Left and Right sub-sects. The STs have Nagendra, Madhugiri Rajanna and Satish Jarakiholi.
What is noteworthy is that the miniscule Backward Class community of Raju Kshatriyas found representation in Boseraju, while the Bestha OBC community has Mankala Vaidya and Santhosh Lad hails from Maratha community.
The Kuruba community to which Siddaramaiah belongs has another representation in Byarathi Suresh. Socialist leader and former chief minister S Bangarappa’s son Madhu Bangarappa represents the Idiga or Billava community.
Former Chief Minister Dharam Singh’s son Ajay Singh, who was considered a sure shot, is however unable to find a place and has been content with his position as Government Chief Whip in the House, which also enjoys cabinet rank and perks.
Similarly, Prakash Rathod, MLC, has been left out as he also enjoys the position as Chief Whip in the Upper House.
The minority Muslim community, which backed the Congress overwhelmingly, has to be content with the post of speaker to U T Khader and Z A Zamir Ahmed Khan and Rahim Khan. Another minority community of Christians is represented by K HJ George, while Jain community is represented by D Sudhakar. The Brahmins have Dinesh Gundu Rao.