BENGALURU: Congress leaders in Karnataka will leave for Delhi on monday to discuss with the high command, the modalities related to government formation in the state with coalition partner the JD(S).
JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy will also be in Delhi tomorrow ahead of his May 23 swearing-in as Karnataka Chief Minister, to meet Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to discuss the modalities of government formation.
Siddaramaiah, Parameshwara and other senior Congress leaders today met party MLAs camped at a city hotel and reportedly discussed the way ahead for the party in the process of government formation.
“Our CLP leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, myself and senior leader D K Shivakumar will leave for Delhi tomorrow and hold talks with Rahul Gandhi (Congress President) and Sonia Gandhi about modalities of government formation,” State Congress President G Parameshwara told reporters here.
To a question on allocation of portfolios between the coalition partners, he said “until things are discussed tomorrow, everything is speculation.”
Amid allegations of poaching attempts by BJP ahead of the trust vote yesterday,Congress and JD(S) had kept its MLAs at separate hotels in the city, after returning from Hyderabad.
He said the high command would take a decision on portfolios and ‘other things.’
Meanwhile, with the date for the swearing-in of the coalition government fast approaching, hectic parleys are on within the Congress for ministerial berths, especially for the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
Though Congress sources hinted that Mr Parameshwara, as a Dalit leader, was front runner for the post, reports suggest there is growing demand from party leaders in north Karnataka that the position be given to a Lingayat from the region, as the Chief Minister’s post is held by a Vokkaliga from the southern part of the state.
Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Mahasabha, the apex body of Veerashaiva-Lingayat faith, has demanded that the Congress high command appoint its national President Shamanur Shivashankarappa as Deputy Chief Minister, and through this, reduce ‘dissatisfaction’ among Veerashaiva-Lingayats.
Prasanta Patnaik