Karnataka CM Swearing-In Ceremony LIVE: Siddaramaiah, DKS to Take Oath Today; Parameshwara, Priyank Kharge in Ministers' List

Former Dy CM G Parameshwara, party MLAs KH Muniyappa, KJ George, MB Patil, Satish Jorkiholi, Priyank Kharge, Ramalinga Reddy and BZ Zmeer Ahmed Khan will be sworn in as ministers in the Karnataka government. 

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin will be in Bengaluru to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Siddaramaiah and his cabinet of ministers. After the Congress won the Karnataka assembly elections with a thumping majority, Stalin was among the first to congratulate the party. “Let us work together to win 2024 to restore the democracy and constitutional values in India,” Stalin had tweeted.

The DMK also took a jibe at the BJP for its defeat in the “Dravidian Land”. “The unjustifiable disqualification of brother @RahulGandhi as MP, misusing premier investigative agencies against political opponents, imposing Hindi, rampant corruption have all echoed in the minds of Karnataka people while voting and they have upheld the #KannadigaPride by teaching a befitting lesson to BJP’s vindictive politics. The landmass of Dravidian family stands clear of BJP,” he had said in another tweet. READ MORE

Banners with Karnataka CM-designate Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM-designate DK Shivakumar, former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, current party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders of the party, seen in Bengaluru.

The swearing-in ceremony will be held in the city today.

The Kerala unit of the CPI(M) is upset over Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan not figuring in the list of special invitees to the swearing-in ceremony of his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah on Saturday.

Refuting the charge, AICC general secretary K.C.Venugopal said that the leaders of political parties have been invited. Both the national secretaries of CPI(M) and CPI are among the invitees. READ MORE

Around a week since the Karnataka election results, distinctly different scenes are playing out in the Congress and the BJP. The former is trying to analyse the political ramifications of making Siddaramaiah the Chief Minister, while RSS-BJP seniors are busy dissecting how the Hindutva plank failed in the coastal Karnataka region.

Despite the smooth working equation between BL Santosh, the general secretary of the BJP, and Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of the RSS — both from the Sangh pedigree and the region of Mysore – the saffron party’s overall vote-share in coastal Karnataka almost halved in many seats. The number of seats also took a plunge as the BJP’s tally of 17 seats in 2018 went gone down to 13 seats this time. The coastal belt of Karnataka includes three districts and has 19 Assembly seats across the region. READ MORE

Two major hurdles out of the way – winning the assembly elections with a massive mandate and finalising Siddaramaiah as the chief minister over DK Shivakumar – the Congress will now have to go back to the drawing board. The task of choosing a winning, well-balanced cabinet, which will help the party deliver on the promises it made to the people of Karnataka, remains cut out. The race for the post of chief minister’s seat may have been brought to a fighting finish, but the new Congress will have to embark on another wrestling match to decide who will be made a minister in the first round of Siddaramaiah’s cabinet. This is certainly going to keep the party on its toes, as not only will it have to balance caste and community combination but it will also have to tactfully manage several aspirants for the limited 33 ministries without causing a rebellion. READ MORE

Outgoing Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday said the BJP will bounce back in the state and asserted that the party has not lost its self-confidence. He said a meeting of newly elected BJP MLAs and the defeated candidates will be held in the next two or three days. During the meeting, the Leader of the Opposition in the new Assembly would be selected, Bommai added.

The outgoing CM said the Congress “which has come to power with its guarantees” has to fulfil them while ensuring the financial health of the state is not disturbed.

“We (BJP) have lost the election, not the self-confidence. We will bounce back in the state again,” Bommai was quoted as saying in a release issued by his office.

The Congress had sent out invites for its Karnataka government’s swearing-in ceremony to 19 like-minded parties, while it has left out 10 parties, including the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) among others.

The party source said that Kharge had sent invites to the Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference, Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP, Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, Jayant Chaudhary-led RLD, Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal, the CPI-ML, the CPI-M, the CPI, the Trinamool Congress, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the Shiv Sena-UBT, the DMK, the MDMK, the NCP, Tamil Nadu-based VCK, Kerala Congress, the IUML, and the RSP.

The source said that the party has not invited Mayawati’s BSP for the swearing in ceremony. Mayawati was present during the 2018 swearing in ceremony of the Congress-JD-S government in Bengaluru. Besides the AAP and the BSP, the Congress has also not invited the BRS, N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, Biju Janata Dal, the AIMIM, the AIUDF, the INLD, and the JD-S for the swearing-in ceremony.

The swearing-in ceremony of Siddaramaiah as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka to be held on Saturday in Bengaluru is causing concern among the student community, as thousands are scheduled to appear for the Common Entrance Test (CET) at 122 centres in the capital city on the same day.

However, Deputy Chief Minister designate and Karnataka Congress President D.K. Shivakumar has said that precautions have been taken to ensure that the students reach the examination centres without facing any problems. The Education Department and the Chief Secretary have been informed in this regard, he said.

“Our request: Reach the examination centre by 9.30 am; the management board has been informed to arrange lunch for the midday exam takers at the selected centres; contact the police for any assistance,” Shivakumar said.

A day before the oath-taking ceremony in Bengaluru, Karnataka Chief Minister designate Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar, the Deputy Chief Minister designate, on Friday met former party chief Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to invite them to the ceremony.

Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar both arrived in the national capital on Friday afternoon to meet senior party leaders and invite them to the swearing-in ceremony scheduled in Bengaluru on Saturday.

After the meeting with the two Karnataka leaders, Rahul Gandhi took to Facebook and wrote: “Our focus is to fulfil the 5 Guarantees and build a better future for the people of Karnataka.”

With the Congress party high command reaching out to senior leaders to take up the post of the Speaker in the Karnataka Assembly, veterans, eyeing plum cabinet posts, are reluctant. According to party sources, the seniors are evading the responsibility on one pretext or the other.

The party is contemplating to allot the post of Speaker to senior leaders like Dr. G. Parameshwara, T.B. Jayachandra, R.V. Deshapande, H.C. Mahadevappa, and Tanveer Sait.

Parameshwara is a prominent Dalit and resourceful leader, and Mahadevappa and Sait are close confidantes of Siddaramaiah. But, none of these leaders are interested in taking up the post, sources said.

“In our first cabinet meeting, we will implement our five guarantees… We will do our job with unity…It’s not DK Shivakumar’s guarantee or Siddaramaiah’s guarantee, it’s the Congress party’s guarantee, we will fulfil that,” said DK Shivakumar.

Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Thursday said that he will administer oath to Chief Minister-designate Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar to take oath on May 20. “I am in receipt of your letter dated 18th May, 2023 staking claim to form the government. “I invite you to take oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka and D.K. Shivakumar to take oath as Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka along with team members. The oath ceremony will take place at 12.30 p.m. on May 20, 2023 in Kanteerava Stadium, Bengaluru,” the Governor said in a communication to newly-elected leader of Congress Legislature Party Siddaramaiah. A copy of the letter has been sent to Shivakumar.

Congress is likely to induct at least 10-12 ministers into the cabinet at the swearing-in on Saturday, apart from Siddaramaiah who will take oath as chief minister and DK Shivakumar as his deputy, according to a report by Times of India.

Those who are invited to the oath-taking ceremony include– Top 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 Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, the CM said she won’t be attending the ceremony personally and nominated a TMC leader as per designated representation. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar Former chief minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Deputy Tejashwi Yadav National Conference President Farooq Abdullah Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik

At the Karnataka Assembly elections, 14 BJP ministers including Govinda Karjol, J C Madhuswamy, B C Patil, Shankar Patil Munena Koppa, Halappa Achar, B Sriramul, Dr K Sudhakar, B C Nagesh, Murugesha Nirani, B C Patil, and M T B Nagaraj tasted defeat. V Somanna also lost from Varuna and Chamarajanagar, the two segments where he contested. Meanwhile, R Ashoka, who contested from two constituencies, was re-elected from Padmanabhanagar but lost in Kanakapura.

The Congress party has achieved its best-ever performance in Karnataka since 1999, winning a comfortable majority of 135 seats in the 224-member assembly polls held on May 10. The party has made significant gains in Old Mysuru, Mumbai Karnataka, Hyderabad Karnataka and Central Karnataka regions. Meanwhile, the BJP has managed to retain its hold only in Coastal Karnataka, and its seat tally has slumped to 65 from 104 in 2018.