BENGALURU: Minister and senior BJP leader B Sriramulu who has been given the Social Welfare Department seems to be still eyeing the Deputy Chief Minister post. Sources from the Chief Minister’s Office said Sriramulu was upset and even expressed his unhappiness before the CM as his portfolio was changed without his consent. He reportedly said he wouldn’t have minded if the portfolio was changed during a cabinet reshuffle. And he had placed his old demand to make him DyCM. During the 2018 elections, the party had projected Sreeramulu as DyCM.
Speaking to TNIE, Sreeramulu said, “I had held the Health portfolio in 2008 too. From day one, I have been for change and wanted Social Welfare Department. I want to work for the socially backward people.”
On the Deputy CM post, Sreeramulu said it was an old demand. “I am capable of handling Social Welfare and the Deputy CM post simultaneously. I have experience. It is up to the party to decide and hope they will go by people’s demand,” he said. Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa has reportedly assured him to make him the DyCM in future.
Sreeramulu is a powerful leader from the Valmiki community, that constitutes a large chunk of Karnataka’s population. Soon after he was inducted in the cabinet and given the Health portfolio, Sriramulu in an earlier interview with TNIE had said there were 60 lakh people from his community across the state and it was their demand to have their representative as Deputy Chief Minister.
Just three weeks ago, Sreeramulu had placed a chit at the Durga Devi temple in Yadgir where he had expressed his wish of becoming DyCM. At the time he told the media that whatever he had written on the piece of paper was between him and the Goddess. However, later the temple priest revealed that he had placed a political request — of wanting to become the Deputy CM.
Nayaka forum flays minister’s ‘snubbing’
Mysuru: Rallying behind Minister B Sreeramulu, Nayaka community leaders from Mysuru took objection to the alleged attempts to sideline the Nayaka strongman and threatened to take out a rally till the Chief Minister’s residence, if he was not made a Deputy Chief Minister at the earliest. Nayakara Hitharakshana Vedike state president Dhyavappa Nayaka said that not only did the CM break his promise of giving Sriramulu the DyCM’s post, he also demoted him by stripping him of two portfolios and has given him only one. “This is not an insult to Sriramulu alone, but the entire Nayaka community,” said Dhyavappa.