Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Aug 29: Even as dust kicked over the controversy relating to Siddaramaiah eying the chief minister's post refuses to settle down, the coordination committee meeting of the coalition government is scheduled to be held on August 31. Under instructions from committee chairman and former chief minister, Siddaramaiah, convener of the committee and JD(S) national secretary general, Danish Ali, has made arrangements to hold the meeting on August 31.

The meeting is expected to discuss differences between the coalition partners which would have occurred during the nearly two months period since the last coordination committee meeting was held. It will discuss ways and means to set right the differences, discuss issues like ministry expansion and who among the ministers should be dropped and who should be inducted, etc. Reports say that chief minister, H D Kumaraswamy and his deputy, Dr G Parameshwar, have been silently assessing the performances of individual ministers for this purpose. Congress is likely to send this list to the high command with recommendation to drop ministers whose performances are not satisfactory. JD(S) does not have a problem here as the number of ministerial aspirants is very less there.

Coordination committee chairman Siddaramaiah

During the period Siddaramaiah was recuperating at a naturopathy centre at Dharmasthala, some matters he discussed during casual discussions there about the stability of the coalition government had been captured on video. This also gave rise to lot of speculations about the possibility of the coordination committee meeting turning stormy. However, the meeting did not discuss this issue and exchanged opinions about the need to maintain good coordination between coalition partners.

In the meanwhile, chief minister, H D Kumaraswamy, admitted that there have been minor differences at the local level between the two parties. He however added that at the national and state level, there are no differences, and that whenever some misunderstanding arises, the two parties will set them right and proceed.

After the coordination committee met last time, state presidents of both the parties have been replaced. In normal course, state presidents of coalition partners become members of this committee. Therefore, discussions are likely to be held and a decision will be arrived at about the inclusion of Dinesh Gundu Rao and H Vishwanath in the committee. Discussion about the ministry expansion will also be carried out. The other issue which is likely to be taken up is the appointment of presidents and chairpersons to boards and corporations. Dates of appointment may also be arrived at the meeting.

Siddaramaiah recently fuelled controversy by expressing his desire to become chief minister of the state again. Some legislators and leaders expressed the opinion that Siddaramaiah should become the chief minister, while the party leaders have tried to control the damage by saying that in the next election, Congress will win and Siddaramaiah will become the chief minister.

In the meantime, Siddaramaiah is learnt to have brought pressure on both the party high command and the chief minister to change the portfolios of some senior ministers. He is said to be asking for changing the departments of K J George, R V Deshpande and G Parameshwar as he wants George, considered to be close to him, to be given Bengaluru city development portfolio. He plans to hand over the department of large scale industries held by George to Deshpande and give revenue department currently held by Deshpande to Parameshwar. It is said he has held a round of discussions on this issue with the chief minister and his party high command.