What Challenges Does The Congress In Karnataka Face To Choose Its Council of Ministers

The suspense in the Congress, Karnataka is over, following the decision by the party to make Siddaramaiah the Chief Minister and D K Shivakumar his deputy.

There are however challenges ahead for the party as it gets set to announce the council of ministers. There is a list in circulation about the probable list of ministers, but that is speculation as of now.

Leading political analyst Dr. Sandeep Shastri tells OneIndia that this would be a challenge for the party. There are 40 MLAs out of the 135 who have been ministers. It would be challenging for the Congress to accommodate all of them as the total strength of the ministry can only be 34 (15 per cent of the strength of the 224 member legislative assembly). Merely one-fourth of the congress Legislators are hoping to become ministers, Dr. Shastri adds.

The biggest challenge for the party would be to balance and accommodate these MLAs while also ensuring that there is fresh blood in the ministry. The other challenge would be to balance the regions, caste, experience and more importantly keep in mind their capabilities, he adds.

On the question whether not making Shivakumar the chief minister would use the Vokkaliga apple cart for the Congress, Dr. Shastri was in disagreement. He says that making Shivakumar the deputy CM would work in favour of the Congress. They know that their leader has been placated. If one looks at the last Congress government, Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba was made the CM. There were no other senior Kurubas in the government, he points out.

The Congress won 135 of the 224 seats in the Karnataka elections, the results of which were declared on May 13. Both Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah were in Delhi for nearly three days post the results. The party high-command finally prevailed and announced that Siddaramaiah would be made the chief minister and Shivakumar his deputy. Although there is talk on a term sharing arrangement between the two, the same has not been officially confirmed as yet.

In Delhi Shivakumar said that he had returned to invite their leader for the swearing-in-ceremony. " I wanted to invite them personally. Later on we will discuss the Cabinet formation," he also said.