Denied ministerial berths, disgruntled Cong MLAs hold meetings in K'taka

Bengaluru: Upset over not securing berthsin the expanded H D Kumaraswamy ministry, several Congress MLAs in Karnataka on Thursday held separate meetings in the city.

The meetings were held a day after the 15-day old two-member JDS-Congress cabinet was expanded with the induction of 25 new ministers after intense bargaining for ministerial berths.The much-awaited exercise has caused heartburn among several lawmakers in the coalition while supporters of some of the ministerial aspirants staged protests.

The Congress had dropped several key members of the previous Siddaramaiah ministry, including M B Patil, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Ramalinga Reddy, R Roshan Baig, H K Patil, Tanvir Sait, Shamanur Sivashankarappaand Satish Jarkhiholi.

A meeting held at M B Patil's residence here today was attended by disgruntled MLAs including M T B Nagaraj, Satish Jarkiholi, Sudhakar and Roshan Baigs.

Emerging out of the meeting, Jarkiholi, who is also an AICC secretary, said they discussed about the cabinet expansion and it was true that they were "unhappy" over not getting Ministership.

"We have discussed about how to set it right by bringing it to the notice of state and Delhi party leadership about capable and efficient aspirants. We have discussed this yesterday also.. today also we discussed and we will meet again," he said.

However, trying to downplay the significance of the development, M B Patil blamed the media for creating "a hype" about his meeting with party colleagues and asked "what is wrong with it?" Admitting that he was a ministerial aspirant, the former Minister said nothing was more important than self respect for him, but "that doesn't mean being anti-party".

He claimed the discussion was about the welfare of the party. Asked if he would agree for the Minister's post during the second phase of cabinet expansion, Patil said "...I'm not a second class citizen. I don't have any aspirations further...

even Deputy Chief Minister for North Karnataka then (before first cabinet expansion), I had askedfor it."

Patil, a prominent ministerial face of theSiddaramaiah government, was at the forefront demandingreligious minority tag for Lingayats, the largest community in the state.

Interestingly, Shamanur Shivashankarappa, the face of Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Mahasabha that had opposed religious minority tag only for Lingayats, by advocating that Lingayats and Veerashaiava are the same, has also not been inducted as the minister.