S M Krishna's cabinet will be
constituted at 10, Janpath
M D Riti in Bangalore
Somanahalli Mallayya Krishna was made chief minister of Karnataka following a telephone call from Sonia Gandhi. And now, he's waiting to consult madam before he formulates his ministry.
Krishna and his new-found friend, D K Shivakumar, a junior prisons minister in the last Congress regime, have been camping in Delhi since yesterday to finalise the ministry.
Krishna has obviously decided to play it safe and avoid any possible accusations of favouritism by ensuring that he has a list that can be attributed to his Delhi bosses.
However, he is bound to have a tough time keeping all the leaders in his party happy.
Several senior leaders like Mallikarjuna Kharge, C K Jaffer Sharief, S
Bangarappa, Margaret Alva and Veerappa Moily have reportedly given him lists of their candidates.
The caste equations will be an additional headache. Of all the Lingayat legislators elected, several MLAs belonging to the Sadar Lingayat community are new. Giving any one of them a place in the cabinet would mean antagonising others as all of them have almost the same experience.
And there is no way the chief minister can ignore Lingayats altogether. With M Rajashekhara Murthy joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress has no senior Lingayat leader left now in the party.
However, several lesser known but fairly senior Lingayat leaders have been elected from north Karnataka, and Krishna will have to accommodate some of them.
This time Krishna is also under pressure from certain senior leaders to accommodate their sons in the ministry. Bangarappa wants him to take in his film star son Kumar, while Sharief, who lost his politically active son Khader Nawaz some months ago, is now promoting his son-in-law Syed Yassin.
Krishna, however, is unlikely to take in either Yassin or Kumar, despite pressure from their fathers.
But there are some names that are almost certain to be there in the final list. These include: Mallikarjun Kharge, who was Krishna's main rival for the chief minister's post; C K Jaffer Sharief, another contender for the top post; Lingayat leader K H Patil's son H K Patil; T B Jayachandra; H Vishwanath; Azeez Sait, whom
Krishna greeted after his swearing-in as the Bheeshmacharya of the Congress; A S Koujalgi; K H Ranganath, a backward-class leader; D B Chandre Gowda; Kagodu Thimmappa; H C Srikantiah; R V Deshpande; Ramalinga Reddy and M V Ghorpade.
Roshan Baig, who defeated Lok Shakti president Jeevaraj Alva, might also
feature in the ministry.
For the speaker's post, Krishna reportedly two names in mind - Malka Reddy and M V Venkatappa.
The latest buzz is that Krishna might expand his ministry during the Dassera holidays, soon after the weekend.
Until then, MLAs and their supporters will continue to travel up and down to Delhi to lobby for
Plum portfolios, as it seems the final list will emanate from there.
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