BENGALURU: The wait has got longer for Cabinet aspirants in Karnataka. This time, the delay is caused due to the absence of AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, who is away in the US for personal reasons. He is expected to return in the third week of September.
By convention, the Congress high command doesn’t take any decision on matters related to any state unit without the participation or opinion from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of the particular state.
Sources said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wanted to take up the expansion, which has been pending for a long time, soon after the BBMP elections. He had even planned to visit Delhi early this month to hold talks with the party high command. That, however, didn’t happen as Singh, who is in charge of the party affairs in Karnataka, went to the US reportedly to supervise the treatment of his ailing daughter.
Later, the chief minister is said to have made efforts to meet Sonia Gandhi and finish the exercise well before the zilla and taluk panchayat elections towards the end of this year.
He, however, was advised to wait till Singh returned from Delhi.
Sources said Singh was scheduled to return on Thursday, but his return has now been postponed to September 21. This means the process to initiate talks on expansion will happen in the third or fourth week of September.
As a result, Siddaramaiah, who was planning to club his visit to Delhi to attend the Global Investors’ Meet road show on Wednesday, besides holding a meeting with the party high command on Cabinet expansion, has cancelled his visit.
“There is no point in the CM visiting Delhi as the party high command doesn’t discuss anything on expansion in the absence of Singh,’’ a close aide of the chief minister said.