Bengaluru: The new Congress government in Karnataka is a blend of experience and debutants as chief minister Siddaramaiah expanded his cabinet, taking its strength to the full quota of 34 ministers. The cabinet has eight members who have become ministers for the first time, including a woman.
The exercise, coming after three days of hectic parlays with the party high command in New Delhi, however, sparked off protests, with several experienced leaders expressing their bitterness at being left out. Supporters of at least three leaders staged protests in different parts of the state.
Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar, who reports say had serious differences over the ministerial choices, have taken care to ensure balanced representation to castes and regions in the state. The fair distribution of ministerships has seen that the government has eight Lingayats, the traditional vote bank of the rival BJP. Unlike in the previous elections, when Lingayats voted nearly en bloc for the BJP, this time the dominant caste group favoured the Congress, especially in Kalyana (Hyderabad) Karnataka, Kittur (Mumbai) Karnataka and central Karnataka, even though the latter two regions had earlier overwhelmingly voted for the BJP.
There are five SC ministers in the cabinet and three ST ministers. Vokkaligas, who supported the Congress in large numbers, got four ministerial seats – the community which had backed the JD(S) for several decades shifted loyalty to the Congress, which scored an impressive victory in the regional party’s stronghold of Old Mysuru. Unlike in the BJP regime, there are also four ministers from religious minorities, including two Muslims, one Christian and one Jain. For the first time, a Muslim – U.T. Khader – has been made Speaker). OBCs too received good representation in the ministries.
The community-wise representation was important from the point of view of the Lok Sabha elections next year. The stage is now set for the Congress to run the administration, as portfolios too have been distributed.
While regional balance was fairly good, there were several districts which were left out in the ministry formation. While 22 districts found representation, those missed out included: Chikkamagalur (which elected Congress MLAs from its all five seats), Kodagu (Coorg) which was electing only BJP MLAs in the last few elections, newly formed Vijayanagar, backward Chamarajanagar, former chief minister S.R. Bommai’s home district of Haveri, JD(S) stronghold of Hassan, BJP-dominated coastal districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada, and Kolar.
Bengaluru received the highest representation of six (the city elected 13 Congress MLAs out of total of 28, the other 15 seats going to BJP). The chief minister did not consider the MLCs for ministership.
The veterans who missed out included R.V. Deshpande (nine-time MLA), T.B. Jayachandra (eight-time MLA), B.K. Hariprasad, Tanveer Sait, Basavaraj Rayareddi, N.A. Harris and others. While all the others mentioned boycotted the swearing-in event held at Raj Bhavan on Saturday, Deshpande exhibited camaraderie as he said there must have been compulsions for Siddaramaiah to exclude him because of the pulls and pressures from various communities for berths.
Jayachandra said till the last minute, he was assured of a ministry. Hariprasad, who held several posts in the AICC in the past, was said to be livid at being omitted. He is said to have told the high command that he would resign as MLC. Hariprasad, who is from the Eediga community (OBC), was several times a Rajya Sabha member and was leader of the opposition in Karnataka Legislative Council at the time of elections.
Laxman Savadi, who quit the BJP and joined the Congress, was a surprise omission. A Lingayat leader who won a handsome victory from Athani in Belagavi district, Savadi was seen as a certainty since his (along with that of another BJP leader and former chief minister Jagadish Shettar) quitting BJP on being denied ticket was seen to have turned the Lingayants against BJP.
Though women in the state are believed to have overwhelmingly voted for the Congress, there is only one woman minister in the cabinet. The Congress has four women MLAs. Lakshmi Hebbalkar, the lone woman in the cabinet, represents Belagavi district.
Shivakumar sought to pacify those left out. “It is not possible to make everyone a minister. You need to exhibit patience like I did. I was not made a minister when Dharam Singh and later Siddaramaiah (for the first one year of his chief ministership) became chief ministers but I waited patiently and I was rewarded.”
B.S. Arun is a senior journalist based in Bengaluru.