Karnataka: Cautious Congress may give JD(S) upper hand

BENGALURU: As the Congress-JD(S) coalition celebrates the defeat of BJP and B S Yeddyurappa, they will now have to get down to the nuts and bolts of forging a working arrangement, and deliberate on “sensitive” issues of power sharing and portfolio allocation.

Having accorded unconditional support to JD(S), Congress will not seek any plum portfolios or indulge in hard bargaining with its regional partner, sources in the grand old party said. “We do not want to destabilise the alliance by creating a rift over power sharing and portfolio allocations,” said a former Congress minister.

So delicate is the nature of the alliance that some Congress leaders are considering not taking oath as ministers on May 21 along with HD Kumaraswamy as they don’t want to steal his thunder.


The Congress is not likely to put in any pre-condition of sharing power on a 20:20 basis (as was done when JD(S)- BJP were in alliance in 2006) either, thereby surrendering control of the government to JD(S) till the 2019 Lok Sabha poll and also providing shortterm stability to Karnataka.

Kumaraswamy said senior leaders of both the parties would sit together to work out the modalities of the alliance late on Saturday night. “Once the modalities are worked out, we will decide on whether any of the Congress leaders will be sworn in on May 21,” said Kumaraswamy.

It is expected that Kumaraswamy will invite KPCC president G Parameshwara to become deputy CM. This will be in keeping with the JD(S) promise to have a Dalit or Muslim for the post.

The other inclusion in the cabinet, apart from the certain ministry to his brother H D Revanna and giant killer G T Devegowda (who defeated Siddaramaiah in Chamundeshwari), is likely to be B Mahesh, the BSP candidate from Chamarajanagar. The Mayawati-led party is a prepoll ally of JD(S). Others from JD(S) whose names are doing the rounds are Bandeppa Kashempur, Basavaraj Horatti, C S Puttaraju, H Vishwanath and M C Managuli.

From Congress, D K Shivakumar, M B Patil, Priyank Kharge and R V Deshpande are certain of securing berths. It is expected that JD(S) will keep 12 to 15 of the 33 portfolios, with the rest going to Congress.