Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah with jubilant supporters after he was appointed as the new chief minister of Karnataka yesterday.
Bangalore: Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj late yesterday appointed Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah as the state’s chief minister. The 64-year-old leader is expected to be sworn in on Monday.
“The governor is pleased to appoint Siddaramaiah as the Chief Minister of Karnataka,” the Raj Bhavan office said in a communique.
After meeting Bhardwaj, a beaming Siddaramaiah told reporters outside Raj Bhavan, “I will take oath as chief minister most likely on Monday.”
The appointment came within three hours of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G Parameshwara informing the governor that Siddaramaiah had been unanimously elected the CLP leader, and requesting him to invite the latter to form the government.
“After taking oath alone, I will go to New Delhi with Parameshwara and finalise the council of ministers in consultation with party president Sonia Gandhi and the high command,” the chief minister-designate said.
Siddaramaiah was named chief minister by the party’s senior leaders after the majority of the 121 newly-elected legislators preferred him over another aspirant, union Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge, who is a Lok Sabha member from Gulbarga, about 650 km from here.
“Siddaramaiah is the choice of the party’s high command for the chief minister’s post,” the party’s central observer, Defence Minister AK Antony, told reporters at the party’s office in the city centre.
Within minutes of the announcement, wild celebrations broke out at the party office, with hundreds of cadres and Siddaramaiah’s supporters cheering, screaming, hooting and dancing.
Earlier, all the legislators authorised the high command, which includes party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi, to decide on the name for the coveted post.
“All the legislators have authorised our high command to name the chief minister through a one-line resolution after they expressed their opinion through a secret ballot to the central observers,” another party leader, DK Shiva Kumar, told reporters.
Besides Antony, the high command had deputed the party’s senior leader from Goa, Luizinho Faleiro, and Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh as observers to seek the legislators’ opinion for the chief minister’s post.
Madhusudhan Mistry, the Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, was also present at the three-hour-long meeting.
IANS
