'CM should have axed inefficient ministers' - Malikayya Guttedar

Bengaluru, Oct 30 (DHNS): Thursday’s Cabinet expansion has disappointed many senior legislators, some of whom have been elected four to five times to the assembly and were eager to get into the council of ministers.

The latest round of Cabinet expansion fills all the 34 ministerial berths allowed for Karnataka. The total number of ministers in the State should not be more than 15 per cent of the total number of MLAs (224).

The vacancies were four and the aspirants many. Senior Congress leaders such as Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, K B Koliwad, Malikayya Guttedar, K R Ramesh Kumar, A B Malakaraddi, H Y Meti and Basavaraj Rayareddy were expecting a ministerial berth at least this time.

Koliwad, Guttedar and Rayareddy had even expressed their aspiration in public several times. They even suggested that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah go in for a cabinet reshuffle and drop unperforming ministers. But that was not to be. Siddaramaiah only went in for an expansion of the Cabinet and said the reshuffle would happen after zilla and taluk panchayat elections in January.

Guttedar, who was in Bengaluru, left for his home district of Kalaburagi in a huff. Koliwad and Rayareddy, however, attended the swearing-in ceremony. Guttedar, who has been elected to the Assembly six times, didn’t hide his disappointment at missing the bus. “My followers are so upset they want me to quit. But I don’t want to resign because the people of Afzalpur (his constituency) have elected me to serve them as MLA, not minister. There is severe drought in Kalaburagi. Let me focus on work,” he said.

He claimed ignorance about why the chief minister had ignored him. “I was sidelined thrice. The chief minister should have removed inefficient ministers while filling the vacant berths. In the past when the BJP invited me to join it, Siddaramaiah discouraged me from doing so and promised to make me a minister,” he said.

‘Social engineering’

Five-time MLA Koliwad said, “I was aspiring to be a minister and feel bad that I could not make it. May be Siddaramaiah opted for social engineering. In a couple of months, he will be reshuffling the ministry to remove inefficient ministers. Hopefully, I will make it then.”

Siddaramaiah told reporters that new faces would be given ministerial responsibility in the next year’s Cabinet reshuffle. At the same time, there is speculation that Siddaramaiah may appoint a batch of parliamentary and political secretaries in the coming days to quell the unrest at least temporarily.