The Hindu : Karnataka News : Home for Dharam Singh, Siddaramaiah gets Finance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Home for Dharam Singh, Siddaramaiah gets Finance

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JUNE 8. The Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) today came to an understanding on portfolios to the Ministers in the "incomplete" coalition Government.

The Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, allocated the portfolios among the Chief Minister, Dharam Singh; the Deputy Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah; the nine Cabinet Ministers and a Minister of State.

Mr. Dharam Singh will handle the Home portfolio besides Cabinet Affairs, while Mr. Siddaramaiah has got the Finance portfolio. The sharing of portfolios is on expected lines, and the two coalition partners have observed utmost transparency. The Janata Dal (S), which has 58 members and is the `junior partner,' has been able to wrest some key portfolios.

The Congress, which has 65 members, has refused to yield the Home portfolio to the Janata Dal (S), which, however, has got the other "weighty" portfolio of Finance. The Congress has also secured the portfolio of Water Resources, which gets a high budgetary allocation. The Janata Dal (S) Ministers will preside over the departments of Large and Medium-scale Industries, Revenue, Higher Education, Public Works and Animal Husbandry.

Though the two parties have shared some revenue-generating and high-spending portfolios, there are as yet a good number of welfare departments to be allocated. It is perhaps, for the first time a government is facing the Legislature without a Minister for Law. The portfolio of Parliamentary Affairs has been allocated.

There are several important portfolios, especially those dealing with the welfare of the people, yet to be allocated. The two coalition partners are awaiting the appointment of the full complement of Ministers before sharing the remaining portfolios. The second expansion of the Ministry is expected after the conclusion of the legislature session on June 16.

Besides Law, the important portfolios without Ministers are Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Health and Family Welfare, Forests, Social Welfare, Women and Child Welfare, Cooperation, Housing, Mines and Geology, Sericulture, Information Technology and Biotechnology, Tourism, Food and Civil Supplies, Bangalore City Development and Information.

With the constitutional ceiling on the number of Ministers in the State being 34, the coalition has been forced to consolidate the portfolios and abolish a good number of them created in the last two decades.

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