While the Cabinet reshuffle is seen as an effort to resurrect the State government’s image, the protests and infighting accompanying it have shown that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s big challenge would be to discipline disgruntled MLAs, who could further damage his government and party’s image.
Apparently, upset with the inclusion of first-time MLAs Priyank Kharge and Pramod Madhwaraj in the Ministry, eight Bengaluru city MLAs have extended support to S.T. Somashekar, Yeshwantpur MLA, and threatened to resign their Assembly membership. In fact, these MLAs were responsible for the party holding power in the BBMP council in support of 14 JD(S) councillors. Two months ago, these legislators under the leadership of Mr. Somashekar held a dinner meeting and urged the Chief Minister to embark on the Cabinet reshuffle exercise.
But on Sunday, lashing out at Mr. Siddaramaiah’s alleged discrimination against legislators, who served the party during crisis, Mr. Somashekar said: “Eight city legislators will meet at an undisclosed place tonight and decide the future course of action.”
MLAs N. Munirathna (Rajarajeshwari Nagar), Byrathi Basavaraj (K.R. Puram), Priya Krishna (Govindarajanagar), and M. Krishnappa (Vijayanagar) — some of them loyalists of the Chief Minister before the reshuffle — have joined hands with Mr. Somashekar.
CM criticised
Meanwhile, V. Srinivas Prasad and M.H. Ambareesh have criticised the Chief Minister publicly and questioned the yardstick adopted for dropping them.
Frustrated over not being inducted into the Cabinet, senior Congress leader and former Minister A.B. Malakaraddy (Yadgir) has threatened to resign from the Assembly as well as the party.
‘Rebel star’ Ambareesh, too, has threatened to resign from the Legislative Assembly. K.B. Koliwad, senior MLA, who is heading the lake committee, has also expressed displeasure after being denied Ministership.
‘No dissidence’
Responding to the threat by MLAs, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asserted that “there is no dissidence within the party.”
He defended the induction of first-time MLAs and said that “every maxim has an exception.”
