Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi also took the stage to reiterate that his party would fulfil the five guarantees it had promised.
Congress leader Mr Siddaramaiah today took charge as Karnataka’s new Chief Minister after completing formalities at a big event in Bengaluru, where 15,000 supporters had gathered. He gave in-principle approval to fulfil “five guarantees”.
Here’s your 10-point guide to this big story:
- Mr Siddaramaiah’s new cabinet “in-principle” approved to implement the Congress’s five guarantees and initial estimates indicate that it would cost the exchequer ₹ 50,000 crore annually. “It’s agreed upon. We will not go back (on the promises),” the Chief Minister said, adding, the assurances would be fulfilled notwithstanding financial implications, if any.
- Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar, who was locked in a dramatic battle with Mr Siddaramaiah for the top job for a week after their party’s emphatic win, took oath as the solo Deputy Chief Minister.
- Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who attended the event along with his sister and the party’s national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, took the stage to reiterate that his party would fulfil the five guarantees it had promised.
- “After Congress’s victory, many things were written as to how Congress won this election, different analyses were done, but I want to say that Congress won because we stood with the poor, Dalits, and Adivasis, backwards. We had truth, poor people. BJP had money, police and everything, but the people of Karnataka defeated all their powers,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding that his party will give the state a clean, non-corrupt government.
- Eight newly elected MLAs with diverse representation, approved by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge this morning — G Parameshwara, KH Muniyappa, KJ George, MB Patil, Satish Jarkiholi, Priyank Kharge, Ramalinga Reddy, and BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan — also took the oath of office. Portfolios haven’t been distributed to them yet.
- Top Opposition leaders, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, CPI’s D Raja, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, PDP’s Mehbuba Mufti, Sharad Pawar from NCP, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, and actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, were in attendance in a symbolic display of Opposition unity against the BJP ahead of next year’s general elections.
- Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states — Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan) and Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh) were also present at the event.
- West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav were conspicuous by their absence from the mega event.