BENGALURU: The induction of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president G Parameshwara as Home Minister has triggered a curious battle for a room on the third floor of the Vidhana Soudha.
The government has allotted Room 205 and 206 on the second floor to Parameshwara, and in the process, left the chairmen of two committees clamouring for Room 338 on the third floor.
Ministers feel an office on the third floor, where the chief minister sits, adds to their stature. Parameshwara’s supporters want him to work from that floor. They are arguing he is now No. 2 and deserves a room there.
The Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) has allotted space, now occupied by the Kannada Development Authority (KDA), to Parameshwara.
KDA’s Demand
KDA Chairman L Hanumanthaiah, who must make way for Parameshwara, has asked for Room 338 on the third floor, currently occupied by senior MLC
V S Ugrappa, who is also the chairman of the expert committee on prevention of crime against women and children.
Officially, they are equal in status, enjoying the privileges of cabinet ministers.
Conceding Kannada Development Authority’s demand, the DPAR has allotted them Room 338. But Ugrappa, a close confidant of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, has written to him, resisting the idea.
Ugrappa’s committee has been functioning from that room for five months.
According to official sources, Ugrappa has been asked to shift to Multi-Storeyed (MS) Building, a stone’s throw from the Vidhana Soudha.
CM Asked to Intervene
He confirmed to Express he had been asked to vacate Room 338. “While I have no objection to making way for the minister, one panel shouldn’t vacate space for another. I have asked the chief minister to intervene,” he said.
Meanwhile, if the KDA does get to Room 338, it will be a homecoming of sorts, as it had functioned from there for many years.
Incidentally, Siddaramaiah was the first to head the panel, called Kannada Kaavalu Samiti (Kannada Watchdog Committee) when it was established in 1983 by the first-ever non-Congress government headed by Ramakrishna Hegde.