Published Feb 25, 2026 | 8:00 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 25, 2026 | 8:00 AM
The MLAs belong to different factions, but their desire for Cabinet berths brought them together.
Factions may have divided Congress leaders in Karnataka, but Cabinet ambition seems to have united them.
A letter to the party high command, seeking representation in the state Cabinet ahead of a possible reshuffle, has now surfaced in the media. One of the signatories, Basavaraju Sivaganga, told South First that the letter — signed by more than 30 first-time legislators — was at least over a year old and had only been leaked to the media now.
The signatories have a single demand: a Cabinet berth. It pointed out that when the 34-member ministry was formed under Siddaramaiah’s leadership, no first-time MLA was allowed to serve in the Cabinet.
“As you are aware, the people of Karnataka have elected 38 members to the legislative assembly from the Indian National Congress for the first time and thereby sent out a clear message that they want to see new young faces in the Legislature,” the MLAs loudly read the people’s mind in the letter.
Interestingly, the signatories belonged to both Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar camps.
Among the signatories, Ramanagara MLA Iqbal Hussain was the first to get a notice from the party’s disciplinary committee for raising the leadership change issue involving Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.
“You all know what our (Congress’s) strength was before this government came to power. Everyone knows who put in the struggle, sweat, effort, and interest to achieve this victory. His (Shivakumar’s) strategy and programmes are history now,” Hussain had told reporters, when asked about Shivakumar’s chance to become the chief minister.
In the 2023 Assembly Elections, Hussain had wrested Ramanagara from the JD(S).
Another signatory was AS Ponnanna, Virajpet MLA and legal advisor to Siddaramaiah. Ponnanna beat BJP’s KG Bopaiah by a margin of 4,291 votes. Virajpet had been a BJP bastion for the last two decades, with Bopaiah holding the seat since 2008.
Channagiri MLA Sivaganga, who also signed the letter, has been perceived to be aligned with Shivakumar. In August 2025, he claimed that Shivakumar would become the chief minister in December 2025. The deputy chief minister came down strongly on the MLA, stating that his remarks were in “violation of party discipline.” He, too, was issued a notice. Sivaganga won from the Channagiri seat in Davanagere in 2023 by 16,435 votes.
Jagalur MLA B Devendrappa, on the other hand, has been perceived as being close to Siddaramaiah. He was recently scheduled to travel to Australia and New Zealand as part of an ‘animal husbandry tour‘, which later became ‘private’ after public criticism. In 2023, Devendrappa beat the BJP’s SV Ramachandra by a close margin of 874 votes.
Puttur MLA Ashok Rai, another signatory, had recently publicly claimed that Shivakumar would be the chief minister in six months. He won the 2023 election from Puttur, which was considered a Hindutva stronghold in Dakshina Kannada since 1994, with one exception in 2013 when Congress’s Shakunthala T Shetty defeated BJP’s Sanjeeva Matandoor.
