Mangaluru: Who is the chief minister of Karnataka? Is it D V Sadananda Gowda? Certainly not. Gowda was chosen as the Chief Minister of Karnataka in August 2011 following the resignation of his mentor B.S. Yeddyurappa in an illegal mining case.
Though he became the chief minister of Karnataka, he was forced to step down from the post after inner conflict arose between the BJP leaders. However, the board which was placed in front of the house of D V Sadananda Gowda at Bendoorwell still says that Gowda is the chief minister of Karnataka!.
It is nearly six year and three months after DVS stepped down from the post of chief minister in Karnataka. After this, Gowda won Lok Sabha election from Bengaluru North constituency and assumed power as the union railway minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet. During the cabinet reshuffle, Gowda was replaced by Suresh Prabhu and he became the union minister for Law. Later, for some inevitable reasons, Modi decided again to reshuffle the cabinet and DVS became the union minister for statistics and programme implementation, which is his present portfolio.
Though the BJP emerged as the single largest party during the last Assembly election with 104 seats in the 222-member Karnataka Assembly, it was not able to form the government as it was not able to touch the magic number of 112 to form the government. Hence, Congress and Janata Dal (secular) formed the coalition government in the state. The state president of JDS H D Kumaraswamy became the chief minister of Karnataka. However, the board which was placed in front of DVS’s house shows that he is still the chief minister of Karnataka.
Though Gowda assumed three portfolios in the Union government after stepping down from the chief ministership, the board placed in front of his house at Bendoorwell still says that he is the chief minister of Karnataka. Surprisingly, Gowda has not yet changed the board.
