Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jun 25: Karnataka chief minister (CM), Siddaramaiah, who has set the exercise to woo the leaders who are angry at either being dropped from the ministry or for not making the minister, by offering posts of chairpersons in lucrative boards and corporations.

In the backdrop of intensifying of activities by unhappy people from within the party, the CM held discussions with senior ministers on Friday June 24 morning. A decision to offer posts of heads of 20 to 25 boards and corporations to legislators was taken at the meeting. Among them, senior legislators will be given cabinet grade positions while junior ones will get state grade appointments. The list also is said to have been almost finalized, and the nod of state Congress affairs in-charge, Digvijay Singh, who is on foreign tour, and who is expected to return soon, is awaited. The dissidents have already been given a hint about what is in store for them, it is said.

The CM, it is gathered, plans to pacify 35 to 40 legislators who aspired to become ministers, by giving them posts in boards and corporations and also by promising hefty local area development funds to them. There is a clear plan to disperse the legislators who are trying to come together under the leaderships of Srinivas Prasad and Ambareesh.

In the meanwhile, a meeting proposed to be held at the residence of Qamarul Islam by dissidents has been cancelled as some legislators were away at their constituencies, it was said. Islam said that the dissidents also await the return of former union minister, S M Krishna from Mumbai on Saturday, for holding discussions with him.

However, the promise being made to offer corporations and boards to MLAs has come as a shocker for party activists, who were expecting that leaders and activists other than legislators would alone be offered these posts.