Opinion | Inside The Cabinet Drama That Has Shaken The Congress In Karnataka

Even after getting a lion's share of the berths on offer for his supporters in the expanded DK Shivakumar Cabinet on Monday, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's decision to 'boycott' the swearing-in ceremony because of a perceived 'insult' over the appointment of a woman candidate not chosen by him, clearly indicates that the Congress government in Karnataka will have tumultuous days ahead of the state elections in May 2028.

Coming exactly two months after he took over as Chief Minister from a reluctant-to-leave Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar's attempt to stem the unrest among legislators and have a full-fledged Cabinet received an unexpected jolt hours before the swearing-in. Siddaramaiah's 'tantrums' over Gayathri Shathegowda, an MLC, being named in the Cabinet list not only delayed the ceremony by one hour, but her name being pulled out at the last minute also caused embarrassment to the party.

It appears that Siddaramaiah wanted Basavaraj Shivannavar from Bagalkot to join the Cabinet on the Kuruba 'quota', but the party high command instead chose Gayathri without consulting him. Not only this meant defying Siddaramaiah's 'prerogative' to name a person from his community, but he was also upset that Gayathri had been chosen ahead of his nominee, Umashri, for the women's slot. The party has named Umashri for the Council Deputy Chairperson's post, but neither Umashri nor Siddaramaiah is happy with that.

In another episode, Mankala Vaidya, the lone nominee from Uttara Kannada district, was replaced - hours before the swearing-in - by SS Mallikarjun, a party dynast from Davanagere whose father was a treasurer of the Congress party for decades, while the wife is currently a Lok Sabha member. The son is also an MLA. Mallikarjun claimed that DK Shivakumar had telephoned him, asking him to join the Cabinet; he claimed did not know anything about the last-minute change.

Congress sources say that when Shivakumar received the list of ministers from the party headquarters in Delhi, he was shocked to see that his staunch supporter, HC Balakrishna, the Magadi MLA, was not on it. After he protested the exclusion, Balakrishna replaced M Krishnappa, a big-time realtor and a former minister from Bengaluru. Even after all this, there's one close associate, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, whom Shivakumar has not been able to accommodate and who is now reportedly sulking.

Questions About The 'List'

Considering that in a caste-ridden and region-sensitive state like Karnataka Cabinet compositions are always tricky, the Congress leadership had held a series of meetings with Shivakumar, Siddaramaiah, and BK Hariprasad, the newly appointed Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president. They were asked to submit their respective lists of names to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who hails from Karnataka and has intimate knowledge of state politics. The lists were vetted by the party general secretary, KC Venugopal, and AICC's Karnataka in-charge, Randeep Surjewala, and shown to Rahul Gandhi before being released.

The fact that the final list of names typed on the AICC letterhead reached media outlets around the same time as the Chief Minister's office - and much before being sent to the Lok Bhavan (formerly, Raj Bhavan) for the Governor's approval - has kicked up a row. The opposition BJP and the JD(S) have accused the Congress of taking away the Chief Minister's right to name his cabinet and reducing him to a 'rubber stamp'.

The leader of the Opposition, R Ashok, has questioned the Congress party's "ethical standards" in choosing the nominees for the posts of Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, and also Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council, when this is the 'mandatory duty' of the legislators.

It appears that with less than two years to go for assembly polls, the Congress high command tried to micro-manage the Cabinet formation by getting caste combinations right and giving a major slice of power to numerically strong and influential communities. The 'Ahinda' group led by Siddaramaiah has garnered nearly 60% of the berths, while the Lingayats, scheduled castes, and OBCs have seven representations each. The Vokkaligas have six, the Muslim minorities four, and the Scheduled Tribes three.

The Congress is also not unaware of the risk of the JD(S) reclaiming some of its former members, and has thus tried to accommodate at least five of them currently in the party.

Rein In The Discontent

Even so, while the election arithmetic may have been aimed at arriving at a 'winning combination', the ground situation betrays a vast amount of discontent among the legislators, which is bound to have an impact on the final outcome.

The Congress has 136 MLAs across the state. Despite that, due to a skewed selection, seven districts have gone without any representation, while Bengaluru urban and rural have nine faces. Yashwantreygouda Patil from Indi and Sangamesh from Bhadavati have resigned as MLAs to protest against their exclusion from the cabinet.

A few more disgruntled MLAs may or may not join the list of deserters in the days to come, though whether this immediately threatens the stability of the Shivakumar government remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the sea of discontent over the exclusion of many seniors from the cabinet, such as HK Patil, Dinesh Gundu Rao, HC Mahadevappa, TB Jayachandra, CS Nadagouda, Tanveer Sait, Shivananda Patil, BR Patil, RB Thimapura, Sharanabasappa Dharshanapur, and others, is rising and could soon trigger a washout if it boils over as the polls approach.

It is important to remember that Siddaramaiah is still smarting at the "humiliation" of being abruptly asked to step down as Chief Minister. Not one to take such things lightly, it won't be surprising if he keeps his doors open to all those who are willing to walk with him. His boycott of the swearing-in is just the first signal.

(The author is a senior journalist)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author