Karnataka portfolios: JD-S to get Finance, Congress gets Home

After days of hectic negotiations over the sharing of portfolios in Karnataka, the alliance partners have decided that finance will go to the Janata Dal-United and the home department to the Congress, highly placed sources in the parties said on Thursday.

The leaders of the two parties have held five rounds of talks since Wednesday to finalise the portfolio sharing arrangement between the partners.

Sources said Congress president Rahul Gandhi is on board over the portfolio sharing agreement and has spoken to leaders over the phone from the United States, where he travelling with his mother Sonia Gandhi who has gone for a medical check-up.

The power-sharing arrangement between the two alliance partners is being finalised and is in the final stages, the sources added.

The decision on when to make the formal announcement would depend on the leadership of the two parties, they said.

Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal and Janata Dal-Secular secretary general Danish Ali will travel to Bengaluru to hold further talks with their state leaders before finalizing the arrangement, the sources said.

“We have held five rounds of talks with each other and have decided that the JD-S will get the Finance portfolio. I will be now travelling to Bengaluru to hold further talks within our party,” Danish Ali said.

He said he would meet both Chief Minister H D Kumarswamy and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.

Leaders of the two parties, including Ali as well as the Congress’s Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot and Venugopal, met at the residence of senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for talks.

The sharing of key portfolios in the Karnataka government has been a bone of contention between the two alliance partners since Kumaraswamy took over as chief minister on May 23, delaying government formation in the state.