BENGALURU/ NEW DELHI: The two-week-old H D Kumaraswamy ministry will be expanded on Wednesday under the shadow of the fear of dissidence erupting in the camps of coalition partners Congress and JD(S).
The compulsion to prevent dissidence has forced Congress to drop its plans to give big representation to new faces at the cost of seniors who had served more than two terms as ministers. The suggested list is almost similar to the previous Siddaramaiah ministry except for the exclusion of seniors like H K Patil, R V Deshpande and R Ramalinga Reddy.
Roshan Baig, U T Khader and K J George are set to enter the team as representatives from minority category.Both the parties struggled to finalise their list of ministerial candidates on Tuesday as coalition compulsions have proved too complex to surmount. As a result, both Congress and JD(S) have decided to leave some berths vacant as part of the plan to use those slots to quell the dissidence that may erupt after the ministry expansion.
As per the coalition agreement on June 1, Congress was allocated 22 ministerial berths and JD(S) 12 in the 34-member ministry. However, Congress is expected to induct 17 or 18 ministers and JD(S) 8. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to be held at the Glass House of Raj Bhavan at 2.12pm.
The Congress list was finalised after party president Rahul Gandhi held talks with senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, G Parameshwara, Siddaramaiah, D K Shivakumar, K H Muniyappa, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and KPCC working president Dinesh Gundu Rao.
Faced with the challenge of balancing caste and regional equations, the party has decided to induct three Veerashaivas and three Vokkaligas which will be from among Rajashekar Patil Humnabad, M B Patil, Shamanur Shivashankarappa or Shivananda Patil from Veerashaiva-Lingayats. As for Vokkaligas, D K Shivakumar, M Krishnappa, Krishna Byre Gowda or Dr Sudhakar will be inducted.
The struggle in JD(S) too has turned serious compelling party supremo H D Deve Gowda to keep off MLCs and first-time MLAs from the list. The decision has caused a ripple within the party as MLC Basavaraj Horatti and MLA A T Ramaswamy have expressed their displeasure. The efforts to pacify them have not succeeded with Horatti declining Gowda’s offer to be the Council chairman and Ramaswamy refusing the offer to be Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.
JD(S) is expected to induct 8 ministers on Wednesday. They include H D Revanna, G T Devegowda, C S Puttaswamy and B Satyanarayana (Vokkaligas), Venkatrao Nadagouda (Lingayat), Bandeppa Kashempur (Kuruba), N Mahesh (SC), Raja Venkatappa Naik (ST).
Caste comes into play
Congress is said to have finalised the names of 2 from SCs--Roopa Shashidhar, daughter of K H Muniyappa, the only MLA from SC-left and Priyank Kharge who is from SC- right. While Satish Jarkiholi is sure to make it under ST quota, it will be a toss up between T Raghumurthy and P T Parameshwar Naik for the second slot under ST. The names of H M Revanna, M T B Nagaraj, Byrati Basavaraj have been short-listed for induction from Kuruba community.