Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 20: A new 10-member Congress ministry headed by Siddaramaiah was installed in the office in Karnataka on Saturday in the presence of thousands of supporters and in the very first cabinet meeting held later in the day the government decided to implement the five guarantees the Congress had promised to the voters in the election manifesto.
Showing double quick urgency to fulfil the promises made to the people before the elections, the cabinet decided that the details of the details of the implementation of these schemes would be worked out during the next Cabinet meeting but the departments concerned have been issued the orders to immediately initiate necessary steps for implementation of the decisions.
After the cabinet meeting, Siddaramaiah told media persons that the estimated cost of implementation of the five schemes would cost the state exchequer about Rs 50,000 crores per annum. The five schemes the cabinet decided to implement included Gruha Jyothi — 200 units free electricity per month to every household, Gruha Lakshmi — ₹2,000 every month to every women head of a family, Anna Bhagya — to distribute 10kg of rice every month to every member of BPL family, Yuva Nidhi — 3,000 dole to unemployed graduates, ₹1,500 to unemployed diploma holders every month for two years (in the 18-25 age-group) and Shakti — Free travel for women in ordinary public transport buses across Karnataka.
The cabinet also decided to hold a 3-day session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from Monday for swearing-in of the newly-elected legislators as members of the Assembly. Nine-time MLA R.V. Deshpande will be the pro-tem Speaker of the Assembly to administer the oath of office to newly-elected MLAs. After all the MLAs have taken the oath of office, the election of the new speaker will also be held before the House was adjourned.
At a massive event held at the Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru, the governor Thavarchand Gehlot administered the oath of office to Siddaramaiah as the chief minister, the state Congress president DK Shivakumar as the deputy chief minister and eight cabinet ministers whose names were cleared by the Congress high command only on Saturday morning.
Soon afterwards, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar. tweeting: “Congratulations to Shri @siddaramaiah Ji on taking oath as Karnataka CM and Shri @DKShivakumar Ji on taking oath as Deputy CM. My best wishes for a fruitful tenure.”
Eight ministers sworn-in with cabinet ranks included members with diverse representations as well as some senior party leaders. They included G Parameshwara, KH Muniyappa, KJ George, MB Patil, Satish Jarkiholi, Priyank Kharge, Ramalinga Reddy, and BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan. Portfolios haven’t been distributed to them yet.
Soon after the swearing-in, the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Siddaramaiah addressed the huge gathering assembled at the stadium. All the three speakers assured the gathering that the new government would implement the promises given in the party election manifesto on the first day in the office itself.
“We will give an administration which people have expected from us. Five guarantees will be passed in the cabinet meeting and an order will be issued to implement them today itself,” Siddaramaiah said soon after taking oath.
Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar, who was locked in a dramatic battle with Siddaramaiah for the top job for a week after their party’s emphatic win, took oath as the solo Deputy Chief Minister.
Rahul Gandhi, who attended the event along with his sister and the party’s national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, said, “After Congress’s victory, many things were written as to how Congress won this election, different analyses were done, but I want to say that Congress won because we stood with the poor, Dalits, and Adivasis, backwards. We had truth, poor people. BJP had money, police and everything, but the people of Karnataka defeated all their powers,” he said adding that his party would give the state a clean, non-corrupt government.
Top Opposition leaders, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, CPI’s D Raja, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, PDP’s Mehbuba Mufti, Sharad Pawar from NCP, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, and actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, were in attendance in a symbolic display of Opposition unity against the BJP ahead of next year’s general elections.
Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states — Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan) and Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh) were also present at the event. However, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav were conspicuous by their absence from the mega event.
Siddaramaiah has become the Chief Minister for the second time after his earlier five-year stint from 2013 to 2018. 61-year-old DK Shivakumar, who had earlier worked as Minister under Siddaramaiah, will also continue as the party’s Karnataka state president till Parliamentary elections are over next year.
In the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections, the Congress, with 135 seats, registered an impressive 55-seat gain from its previous tally of 80 in the 2018 elections. The BJP with 66, suffered a massive setback, losing 38 seats from its previous count of 104. Janata Dal (Secular), with just 19, lost almost 50% of its seats from the 2018 tally of 37 seats.
“People have blessed the Congress, and the victory of the Congress is a victory of the people. Our governance will meet the expectations of the people who have sought a change. We will clear the guarantees in the Cabinet meeting today. We will also implement all the promises made in the manifesto in the next five years,” Siddaramaiah announced after he was administered the oath of office.
Soon after Siddaramaiah was sworn in, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi — in a show of bonhomie — hugged the newly sworn in Chief Minister. Hours before the oath ceremony, the mood at Kanteerava stadium was electrifying as Congress supporters — many with flags and tattoos — trooped into the stadium. The crowd roared its approval during the entry of each of the leader on the dais. While an estimated 20,000 supporters were in the stadium to witness the momentous occasion of Siddaramaiah taking the oath of office of Chief Minister for the second time, a few thousands were disappointed at not being allowed inside the venue. The Congress turned the stage into a message displaying unity of parties across India that oppose the BJP, and set a platform for diverse parties to come together ahead of the next year’s Parliamentary elections.
This was similar to the massive show of strength by Opposition parties in 2018, when the JD(S)-Congress coalition under H D Kumaraswamy had assumed power in the state.
Prior to the event, the Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru was witness to a ‘show of unity’ between CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar. With rumours continuing to do rounds about the differences between the two, they attempted to put forth a united face. A loud cheer went up as each lifted the other’s hand, before Rahul Gandhi held up the hands of both leaders.