While the Congress managed to install its governments on Saturday in Maharashtra and Haryana by pocketing pride, the BJP remains at sea literally with the dissidents mounting new demands in Karnataka.
Acceptance of the demands which include an oversight committee to keep a watch on the government, would mean making the chief minister a pigmy if not a figure head. The dissident camp is unwilling to give more than six months of probation to a chastised Yeddyurappa. No surprise there fore, he broke down while addressing the media here.
He has been forced to remove from the CM secretariat a number of trusted aides who have earned the wrath of the dissident camp led by the Bellary brothers and the Speaker Shettar who will now be made a minister and a virtual number two.
To push the CM camp to the wall, the Reddy brothers are planning to send resignation letters of 40- odd dissident MLAs to the Governor Rameshwar Thakur. A constitutional functionary, Thakur is appointed to the post by the Congress government in Delhi. As if answering the threat, BJP high command conveyed to the dissidents that they would not hesitate to opt for fresh assembly elections.
Yeddyurappa said the party crisis has distracted him from concentrating on rehabilitating flood victims in the state because of dissidence. ‘I apologise to the flood victims. When they are facing so many problems, we should not have wasted time on this crisis’, he remarked.
‘For my selfish ends, I was forced to ditch those who were my trusted people. Be it Shobha or Baligar. Even God will not forgive me for this’, Yeddyurappa told Kannada channel "Suvarna".
Under pressure from the Reddy brothers, the Chief Minister yesterday transferred his Principal Secretary P V Baligar to another department and is all set to sack Rural Development Minister Shobha Karandlaje and four other ministers from the Cabinet.
On the Congress front, Ashok Chavan led Cong-NCP alliance government was constituted in Maharashtra while Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was sworn in as Haryana CM for a second consecutive term on 25th October constituted his Council of Ministers, also on Saturday. His government now has six Cabinet Ministers and two Ministers of State.
The Maharashtra ministry has 38 ministers – 18 from Congress and 20 from ally NCP, which has retained all plum posts - finance, rural development and home.
NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal has returned as deputy chief minister. Governor SC Jamir, who forced the allies to sort out their differences, administered the oath of office to new ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai..
Former ministers R R Patil, Rajendra Darda, Laxmanrao Dhoble, Anil Deshmukh, Shivajirao Moghe and Jaidutt Kshirsagar have made a comeback while junior ministers in the earlier cabinet, Naseem Khan, Suresh Shetty and Hasan Mushrif have been elevated to cabinet rank.
Seniors like Vijaysinh-Mohite Patil, Surupsinh Naik, Dilip Walse Patil, Anees Ahmed, Vimal Mundada, Chandrakant Handore, Nawab Malik, Vinay Kore, Rajendra Shingane, Raviseth Patil, Madan Patil, Rameshchandra Bang and Dilip Deshmukh, who were ministers in the outgoing government have been dropped.
Both the Congress and NCP have brought in some new faces.
Haryana governor Jagannath Pahadia administered the oath of office and secrecy to new ministers in Chandigarh. Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mahendra Partap Singh, Om Parkash Jain, Paramveer Singh and Geeta Bhukkal took oath as Cabinet Ministers, while Shiv Charan Sharma and Gopal Kanda as Ministers of State.
- Asian Tribune -
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