DK Shivakumar Faces Cabinet Turmoil Within 48 Hours Of Taking Charge As Karnataka CM

Bengaluru: Popularly known as Congress party's trouble shooter, D K Shivakumar himself is in trouble within 48-hours of taking over as chief Minister of Karnataka, just after allocating portfolios to the 13-ministers who took oath with him.

While senior leader Ramalinga Reddy has tendered his resignation for not getting Bengaluru Development portfolio, senior Dalit Minister K H Muniyappa has expressed displeasure over continuing him as Food and Civil Supplies Minister.

Worst is Sathish Jarkiholi, who wanted to continue in ministry and also take over as the KPCC President, which fell vacant after D K Shivakumar became Chief Minister and failed in his bidding, has already raised his dissent voice against the government decision taken during the first cabinet meeting.

The Friday morning came as a shocker when Ramalinga Reddy, a nine time MLA and was allotted the Water Resource Ministry met the chief minister and submitted his resignation. ``Expressing his gratitude for inducting in the ministry, Ramalinga Reddy had stated that he did not want to work against his conscience and requested to release him from the ministry.''

Ramalinga Reddy was eyeing for Bengaluru Development Ministry,which has now become Greater Bengaluru Authority Ministry, handling five city municipality corporations. 

While the opposition BJP termed it as the signal of the Congress government collapsing in the State, Shivakumar said that Reddy was his good friend and he would talk to Reddy when he returned from Tamil Nadu and convince him.

Meanwhile, the sources said that the issue was discussed with Rahul Gandhi, who had come down to Bengaluru to participate in nomination filing of Mallikarjun Kharge to Rajya Sabha. He asked the Chief Minister and KPCC President Hariprasad to talk to Ramalinga Reddy once and accept the resignation, if he was adamant. 

Since there were a lot of pulls and pressures for portfolios by the first list of ministers. Krishna Byre Gowda, who initiated a lot of reforms in the Revenue Department and expressed his desire to continue in the same portfolio was asked to look after Greater Bengaluru Authority, after Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwar took that ministry. K H Muniyappa, who was handling Food and Civil Supplies ministry was asked to continue the same ministry, but he is miffed that his seniority has been overlooked and has been given a less lucrative portfolio. He came out publicly and expressed his displeasure and said that he had brought this to the notice of the party also to change his portfolio.

Meanwhile, Sathish Jarkiholi, who wanted two posts in Karnataka like the one held by Shivakumar, surprised everyone by criticising one of the six cabinet decisions taken on Wednesday evening

One of the cabinet decisions was to set up 10,000 Bharat Jodo Youth Organisations at Panchayat levels, which would cost ₹1,000 crore for the government. Sathish Jarkiholi said that such programs would be a burden on already strained finances of the state.

However, the Chief Minister shot back saying that even providing coffee/tea and snacks to guests and journalists comes from treasure and the government will work on ways to generate more revenue.