Siddaramaiah to discuss loyalists’ cabinet berths only after Congress Legislative Party meet

New Delhi: Caretaker Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has told his supporters that he will take up the issue of their inclusion in the new cabinet only after the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting.

Siddaramaiah, who was in the national capital on Friday, met top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi.

He, along with his son and MLC Yatindra Siddaramaiah, held a detailed breakfast meeting with Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal.

He later called on Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.

When some of his loyalists met him and urged him to push for their induction into the ministry, Siddaramaiah is understood to have conveyed that he would raise their cases with the party's high command only after the CLP meeting.

Meanwhile, senior ST leader and minister Satish Jarkiholi has expressed his willingness to take over as the state Congress president while continuing as a minister.

He is learnt to have apprised the high command that there are precedents of leaders simultaneously holding the posts of state unit president and minister, citing the examples of S.M. Krishna, Mallikarjun Kharge, and D K Shivakumar.

With Shivakumar, the incumbent Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, widely tipped to become the next Chief Minister, the party is expected to appoint a new state unit president in the near future.