Bengaluru: On a high following his party’s win in the two recent bypolls, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is now believed to be pushing for a change of guard in the state Pradesh Congress Committee and also for filling up two vacancies in his council of ministers and three vacancies in the Legislative Council. Going by party sources he is likely to leave for Delhi to take the high command’s permission to go ahead with his plans.
The vacancies in the council of ministers have arisen following the resignation of Mr H Y Meti over a sex scandal and due to the sudden passing away of Cooperation and Sugar Minister, H S Mahadevaprasad.
As Mr Meti belonged to the Kuruba community, Mr Siddaramaiah is reportedly keen on having someone from the same community fill his shoes. Those in the running are Kundagol MLA, C S Shivalli and MLC, H M Revanna.
And as Mr Mahadevaprasad was a Lingayat, leaders from the community like Appaji Nadgouda, Tiptur MLA, Shadakshari and MLC, S R Patil from Bagalkote, are in the race. The favourites ,however, are said to be Mr Revanna and Mr Patil as the former is a close associate of the Chief Minister and the latter has proved himself as ruling party leader in the Council for almost three years.
But Mr Patil himself is said to be eyeing the post of PCC president and has the backing of Mr Siddaramaiah, who reportedly wants to checkmate Energy Minister D K Shivakumar’s attempts to bag it.
Now that Mr Shivakumar has a better chance of staking claim to the post following the Congress victory in Gundlupet that he was in charge of, the Chief Minister could push for Mr Patil to replace Dr Parameshwar, say sources.
