From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Jul 22: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was reportedly under intense pressure from Congress legislators at the legislature party meeting on Wednesday to sack at least a dozen "deadwood or non-performing" ministers from his Cabinet and induct fresh faces to tone up the image of the State Government.

The ruling party legislators led by senior leaders like former speaker of the State Assembly Ramesh Kumar and K B Koliwad were believed to have sharply criticised the "poor" performance of several ministers in the Siddaramaiah cabinet and demanded that they should be dropped immediately if the Government’s image and performance were to be improved.

The Congress legislators were understood to have taken the Chief Minister to task for failing to honour his promise and repeatedly postponing the expansion of the State Cabinet.

"The Congress government has completed two years but the public perception of the Government was very poor. Unless something is done to immediately tone up the administration, the party is bound to suffer," the former State Assembly speaker Ramesh Kumar is believed to have told the Congress Legislature party meeting.

K B Koliwad, another senior leader and ministerial aspirant, is said to have attacked the "silent" ministers and said their non-performance was the reason for the poor image of the Government.

The resentment of ruling party MLAs exploded in the wake most of the district in-charge ministers failing to visit the bereaved families of farmers, who committed suicide in the last two months, while leaders of different political parties including the chief minister and former Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna did so.

A senior leader observed that soon after Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah delivered his opening remarks thanking legislators for their cooperation in defeating no-confidence motion moved by the JD(S) on Tuesday, the Congress legislators took up the fight against the non-performing ministers.

The Congress legislatorswent to the extent of terming the "inactive" ministers as dead bodies.

Koliwad reminded the chief minister of his promise and sought to know why he could not reshuffle the cabinet dropping some of the ineffective ministers.

Referring to the spate of suicides by farmers, the Congress legislators felt a pro-active team of ministers would not have allowed the opposition BJP and JD(S) parties to take advantage of the agrarian crisis.

"It is duty of the district in-charge ministers to identify crisis and work hard to defuse it. There is no need for the chief minister to intervene and personally tackle the problem that should have been handled by the ministers," a senior leader is reported to have said.

The Congress leader reportedly lamented that chief minister has been compelled to tackle the administration and also attend to day-to-day problems in the State.

Consequently, the chief minister is over-burdened and the functioning of the government is affected. "If the ministers cannot do their work and deliver, let them be packed off and replaced by more efficient and dynamic persons," the leader reportedly said.