Kuruba community strongman Siddaramaiah was sworn in as the 22nd chief minister of Karnataka on Monday at Kanteerava outdoor stadium watched by a 50,000-strong crowd of his supporters who kept cheering him all along.
The customary ceremony lasted for only four minutes with no other minister taking oath, disappointing his supporters drawn from different parts of the state. However, the new chief minister did not upset them for too long as he got cracking soon after taking office and offered sops running into a few thousand crores.
Only two hours after being sworn in, Mr Siddaramaiah announced `4,409.81-crore worth subsidies for the poor belonging to SC, ST, OBC and minority communities reaching out to 1.38 crore people in one go. Sources said this is a clever move by the new CM to reach out to these communities and consolidate his support base.
On his first day in office, soon after the swearing-in ceremony, Mr Siddaramaiah set out to implement the Congress election manifesto, doling out subsidies and loan waivers, after holding an hour-long discussion with senior officials, including the chief secretary and principal secretaries, in the Cabinet Hall at the Assembly.
Thanking AICC president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Congress MLAs for electing him legislature party leader, Mr Siddaramaiah said taking the oath on Basava Jayanthi, the birth anniversary of Basaveshwar, the 12th-century social reformer, meant a lot to him. “He (Basavanna) was committed to equality and social justice. Similarly, our Congress government is committed to the same principles,” he said.
While interacting with the media, Mr Siddaramaiah said he would like to implement all the promises made in the Congress manifesto before the government enters its fifth year in office. “We will not commit the same mistake as they (BJP) did. We will not keep anything for the fifth year,” he said.
Reasserting his position as the leader of all communities and reiterating the policy of “inclusive growth”, he declared that almost 98.17 lakh BPL families would be provided 30 kg of rice at `1 per kg from June.