Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said that he has got the green signal from the Congress high command for a complete revamp of his Cabinet where he has to induct fresh faces keeping in view the Assembly elections due in the State in a year. The exercise is being undertaken to tone up the Government after Congress’ debacle in recent Assembly polls in four States, especially Assam. Karnataka is the only major State where the Congress is in power after being recently ousted in Kerala and Assam.
While the change was put on hold due to the Rajya Sabha elections and the State sent two senior Congress leaders — Jairam Ramesh and Oscar Fernandes — to the Upper House, Siddaramaiah called on party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi to apprise the leadership about the current state of affairs.
“We discussed all names to be dropped and inducted with AICC president Sonia and vice-president Rahulji. We have convinced them. High Command has authorised me to go ahead with the reshuffle,” Siddaramaiah said after the second round of consultations in as many days with the Congress chief. He said “the list will be prepared in a day or two and will be submitted to the Governor”.
Before the meeting, Siddaramaiah discussed the matter with Congress leader in the lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G Parameshwara and Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh were present in the meeting. Gulam Nabi Azad, who was in charge of Congress affairs in Karnataka in 2014, joined the deliberations later.
Sources said that the Chief Minister has proposed dropping of at least 10-14 Ministers from the Cabinet and inducting young legislators and senior Congress leaders in order to balance caste and regional factors.
Signalling that some Ministers would have to take up party responsibility, he had said that the Cabinet reshuffle would be done keeping the next Assembly elections in mind.
The talk about the Ministry reshuffle had been doing the rounds for long but various reasons like drought and elections to local bodies, Council and Rajya Sabha have been cited for its deferment.
Siddaramaiah had earlier said that reshuffle would involve “dropping a few and inducting a few”, and yardstick for it is giving opportunity for new people.