The swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and his to-be deputy DK Shivakumar, who were in a tight race for the top post, on May 20 in Bengaluru could very well turn into a marker of Opposition unity, against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Top leaders including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray have been invited to the Bengaluru event.
Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu have also been invited to participate in the oath taking ceremony.
Nitish Kumar will attend the swearing-in ceremony, JD(U) spokesperson Rajib Ranjan told news agency PTI.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Siddaramaiah called up Stalin over phone on Thursday and invited him to participate in the ceremony, an official release in Chennai said.
Kharge has also reportedly extended the invitation to like-minded opposition leaders like Hemant Soren, Sitaram Yechuri, and Farooq Abdullah.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was invited by Kharge to attend the ceremony, is likely to skip the programme, a top source at the state secretariat said on Thursday.
A representative of Banerjee will, however, be attending the programme, he added.
“The CM is likely to skip the swearing-in-ceremony. She may be assigning someone to represent the state there,” the bureaucrat told PTI.
The Trinamool Congress chief’s presence at the ceremony is considered crucial for opposition unity, especially after Banerjee’s recent statement that in the 2024 general elections, her party will support the Congress where it is strong.
“Wherever the Congress is strong, let them fight. We will give them support, there is nothing wrong (in that). But they have to support other political parties also,” Banerjee has said.
Her statement came soon after Congress registered an emphatic victory over the BJP in the southern state.
In the May 10 polls to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the Congress bagged 135 seats, while the ruling BJP managed to secure 66 seats.
On Thursday, after days of deliberations, the Congress finally announced in a press briefing that Kharge has decided to make Siddaramaiah the next Karnataka CM and Shivakumar will be the only deputy CM of the state.
Announcing the decision taken by Kharge, General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said all leaders, including the top leadership, worked very hard to make Karnataka win a reality.
“We have decided on Siddaramaiah as the chief minister of Karnataka. Shivakumar will be the only deputy chief minister,” he said, adding that Shivakumar will also continue as the party’s Karnataka state president till parliamentary elections are over.
According to PTI, about 20 ministers will also be sworn in along with the CM and deputy CM, including some from the state legislative council.
At the briefing, senior party leader and in-charge for Karnataka Randeep Surjewala said the Congress is committed to fulfil the five poll gurantees made during the elections and action would be taken on them in the first meeting of the cabinet.
A meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) on Thursday formally elected Siddaramaiah as its leader and CM of Karnataka, following which a party delegation, including the CM designate and his deputy met Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot at Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form the government.