Bangalore: The KPCC Coordination Committee has deferred a decision on creating a deputy chief minister’s post for state party president G Parameshwara.
At a meeting here on Tuesday, it left it to party chief Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to take a decision on the thorny issue. The sources said the committee discussed the long-pending Cabinet expansion, appointments to various boards and corporations, bifurcation of the BBMP and promotion of e-commerce.
On Cabinet expansion, it again asked Siddaramaiah and Sonia to decide.
Sources said both Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and KPCC chief Parameshwara will go to Delhi to consult Sonia on finalising the list of ministers to be inducted and the appointments to boards and corporations.
For the record, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, who is in charge of party affairs in the state, said: “Cabinet reshuffle or expansion is the prerogative of the chief minister, and the high command will not intervene in it.” On creating the deputy chief minister’s post, he said: “It would be decided between Siddaramaiah and Sonia.”
While a majority of the members insisted on a reshuffle, the chief minister is learnt to have insisted on just expansion by filling three of the four vacant slots.
The committee, however, asked the CM to complete the process of appointment of party workers to boards and corporations within the next two weeks. According to a proposed formula, 70 per cent of such appointments will be given to party workers while the remaining 30 per cent will be shared among party MLAs. The meeting, attended by Digvijay Singh, Parameshwara, Siddaramaiah, AICC secretaries Chellakumar and Shantharam Naik, Home Minister K J George and Energy Minister D K Shivakumar, lasted for over three hours.
Before the meeting, several ministerial aspirants — Malikayya Guttedar, A Manju, K B Koliwad, A B Malakareddy, Gopal Poojary, Mohiuddin Bava, Ashok Pattan, M Narendra Swamy and others — met Singh and lobbied for the post.
Results Prove Voters Have Faith in Cong: Digvijay
Digvijay Singh said the byelection results have proved that the electorate have faith in the government’s performance.
“People who voted differently in the Lok Sabha elections are with the Congress in the state. Modi magic is no more working,” he said after the coordination committee meeting.
“The challenge before us is to retain their faith and implement the promises made during the elections,” Singh added.
On bifurcation of the BBMP for delivering good administration, he said the government will set up a committee to look into the issue.
Singh suggested that the government promote e-commerce. “Several e-commerce companies, including Flipkart, have set up base in Bangalore. Efforts should be made to retain them here,” he said asking the government to resolve the issues raised by these online companies.
The committee also advised the government to take measures to ensure 4G connectivity in the state in a big way as early as possible.
Maintaining that digital governance can play a pivotal role in delivering good governance, Singh wished that the state government would launch digital governance applications on smart phones soon and come up with simplified rules to facilitate it.
The committee advised the state government not to have any reservation on implementing NDA government policies that benefit people, he added.
