Karnataka’s Congress Government is close to a simple majority in the Legislative Council, with four new members nominated on Sunday, putting an end to months of speculation and lobbying for the four MLC posts that had remained vacant for nearly a year.
The Congress’s strength in the 75-member Council will now be 37. The BJP has 28 MLCs and the JD(S) eight. The remaining two seats are occupied by Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti and independent MLC Lakhan Jarkiholi.
The four new names are Dr Arathi Krishna, F H Jakkanappa, Shivakumar K, and Ramesh Babu. Arathi Krishna is the deputy chairman of the Non-Resident Indian Forum and the daughter of Begane Ramaiah, who was part of the Devraj Urs Cabinet in the 1970s. A Vokkaliga, she had been among the front-runners ever since the Congress decided to shortlist candidates for the posts in the Upper House of the legislature.
F H Jakkannappa and Shivakumar K belong to the Scheduled Castes. While Jakkannappa, who hails from Hubballi, was the president of the party’s Scheduled Castes cell in the state, Shivakumar is a journalist. He had headed the bureau of an English daily in his native Mysuru.
While the three have been associated with the Congress, Ramesh Babu was formerly the national general secretary of the JD(S) before he resigned from the party in 2020. He later joined the Congress and was appointed spokesperson of the party. He will serve a term of nine months, until July 2026, as he will replace Puttanna, who resigned in 2023 to contest the Assembly polls. Babu is expected to be nominated again after completing the current short term.
Sources say the nominations have caused some heartburn for the camp led by Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, as the Congress leadership has ignored the names he suggested for the posts. While Krishna was said to belong to his camp, party insiders have dismissed the claim. According to them, this is the second consecutive time that candidates chosen by Shivakumar have been ignored.
According to a senior Congress leader, only one seat went to a candidate chosen by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, whose picks were his former media advisor Dinesh Amin Mattu and Shivakumar K. The remaining three seats went to the Kharge camp—supporters of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge.
“D K Shivakumar wanted KPCC (Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee) treasurer Vinay Karthik to be among the picks. But his efforts went in vain,” the senior leader said, requesting anonymity.