BENGALURU: The tussle for supremacy between the camps of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has had its fallout in the Congress’s nominations for heads of various boards and corporations in the state.
Siddaramaiah axed seven from the list of 39 nominees finalised by the Congress high command. They include Neelkant Mulge (KKRTC), RS Sathyanarayana (Temperance Board), Syed Mehmood Chisty (Pulses Development Corporation), Anilkumar Jamadar (Tur Dal Development Corporation), BS Kavalagi (Lime Development Board), Anjanappa (Seeds Development Corporation) and Sharanappa Saladpur (Agricultural Produce Processing & Export Board).
RS Sathyanarayana, a senior leader and two-time corporator, who wants to contest Bengaluru corporation polls is not worried--he is eyeing the mayor post if the party comes to power, sources said.
As some of his loyalists were left out from the high command’s list, the CM managed to find them other avenues. He appointed Nikethraj Mourya as BMTC chairperson and HD Ganesh as chairperson of Mysuru Paints and Varnish Limited.
KPCC spokesperson Nataraj Gowda, who was in the race for the MLC posts, missed the bus once again despite being in the good books of the CM. The CM had proposed him for the Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation chairperson post but the DCM chose former MLA SG Nanjaiah Math, also a loyalist of industries minister MB Patil, according to sources.
Nataraj Gowda was eying the Karnataka Vokkaliga Development Corporation chairman post but the DCM planned to give it to former minister MS Atmananda from Mandya, sources added.
Meanwhile, Shivakumar managed to get his loyalist and RS member GC Chandrashekar, a Vokkaliga and KPCC working president, appointed as vice-president of the National Military Memorial Management Trust which has a plan to acquire land for the residential layouts for ex-servicemen, the sources said.
Over 70 per cent of the nominees were from the camps of AICC president Mallikarjuna Kharge and DK Shivakumar, they added.
Afzalpur MLA MY Patil’s son Arun Patil, who was named as chairperson of NWKRTC, has been given KKRTC post. Senior MLA Raju Kage, a loyalist of Siddaramaiah, continued to be the NWKRTC chairperson as the latter pacified former that there was a “printing mistake”.
Earlier, Kaje who was critical of the government was shocked to see his name missing from the high command list.
Siddaramaiah has also appointed 10 leaders as vice-chairpersons of various boards and corporations.
They are Sunil Hanumannanavar (NWKRTC), SV Thambidorai (Forest Industries Corporation), VS Aradhya (BMTC), Aiyshwarya Mahadev (KRDCL), Arun Machaiah (Sports Authority) for which the CM is the chairman, H Lakshman (Minerals Corporation), Vijayalakshmi (KSSIDC), Saundatti MLA Vishwas Vasant Vaidya (Sri Renuka Yellamma Temple Development Authority), RS member GC Chandrashekhar (National Military Memorial Management Trust) and Pyarejan (Compost Development Corporation).