The Congress won the Karnataka Assembly election in 2023
Bengaluru:
The Congress party has asked its national leader Mallikarjun Kharge to decide who will be the new chief minister of Karnataka. Each MP met the Congress observer team and told them their choice by vote, before leaving a five-star hotel in Bengaluru where the Congress held an all-MP meeting.
Karnataka’s new chief minister and cabinet will be sworn in on Thursday, sources said.
The Congress has asked Mr Kharge to take a decision on the appointment of the Chief Minister after the end of the meeting of his MPs from Karnataka at the Bengaluru Hotel this evening.
Congress leaders DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah have expressed interest in the top job, raising concerns of a stalemate if the issue is not resolved.
Supporters of the two Congress leaders chant slogans outside the hotel in Bengaluru where the meeting took place.
Congress Secretaries Sushil Kumar Shinde, Deepak Babaria and Jitendra Singh Alwar were the observers at the Karnataka Congress Legislative Party meeting.
The Gandhis and Mr. Kharge will attend the swearing-in event on Thursday. Congress sent out invitations to all “like-minded” parties to attend. The final outlines of the Karnataka cabinet will take shape in a day or two, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
With @dkshivakumar ji and @siddaramaiah ji at dinner after the PLC meeting.
Congress is UNITED.
Our goal is to ensure good governance for the people of Karnataka who have trusted us. Our priority is to fulfill congressional safeguards. pic.twitter.com/1EbSFyBch5
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) May 14, 2023
Siddaramaiah’s supporters displayed a poster outside his home in Bangalore calling him the “next chief minister of Karnataka”.
Posters also appeared outside Mr Shivakumar’s house, wishing “birthday greetings” to the “new Chief Minister of Karnataka”. Her birthday is tomorrow.
The BJP was ousted from power in Karnataka, its only stronghold in the south until yesterday when Congress won 135 seats out of 224 members.
The BJP won only 66 seats, compared to 104 in the 2018 national elections. It did not win any seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. Karnataka has 51 reserved constituencies, of which 36 are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and 15 for ST candidates.
The magnitude of the Congressional victory is a record in terms of seats and vote tie for more than 30 years. The party won 135 seats – 55 more than in 2018 – with a vote share of 42.88%. Congress came closest to that score in 1999, when it won 132 seats and secured a 40.84% vote share. In 1989, he won 178 seats with a 43.76% vote share.