Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM Shivakumar meet Cong leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi

PTI, May 26, 2023, 1:10 PM IST

Image credit: Twitter / @INCIndia

New Delhi: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar separately met Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former party chief Rahul Gandhi at their residence here on Friday.

While Siddaramaiah met the Gandhis in the morning, Shivakumar met them in the evening.

Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are in the national capital to discuss matters related to the expansion of the Karnataka cabinet and these were their first meetings with Sonia Gandhi after the Congress formed its government in the southern state earlier this month.

The Karnataka chief minister is learnt to have assured the CPP chairperson of good governance in the state and has also thanked her for her guidance and campaigning during the Assembly polls.

Top Congress leaders have held discussions over the last three days with Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar over the expansion of the state cabinet.

The leaders have met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala and general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal.

Sources had earlier said around 20 more ministers are likely to be inducted into the Karnataka cabinet and another round of discussions would be held before the list is finalised.

Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were sworn in as chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively, along with eight cabinet ministers, on May 20.

The Congress high-command had approved the first list of eight ministers against its earlier plan of inducting a much higher number of around 28 legislators into the cabinet.

Karnataka can have a maximum of 34 ministers and the Congress will find it difficult to accommodate all the aspirants.

The sources had said the names of only those MLAs were cleared who represented all sections and were the seniormost, and there were no objections from any side over the choices.

Differences between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are emerging over the names of probable ministers, with both pushing the cases of MLAs close to them.