The plush office meant for Karnataka speaker K R Ramesh Kumar has been given to former chief minister Siddaramaiah, even though he has no constitutional post in the newly formed H D Kumaraswamy government.
Kumar had worked out of the office on the first floor of the complex for the past two weeks. However, he vacated it for Siddaramaiah.
Siddaramaiah was unanimously elected as the leader of the Congress Legislative Party in May and is also the chairman of the JD(S)-Congress government coordination committee.
The new office of Siddaramaiah has high-end wooden furniture, including luxurious sofas, chairs, LED TV and other comforts.
Former Karnataka speaker K B Koliwad had renovated this office at a cost of Rs 68 lakh expanding the single-room space into two during his term. The lavish expenditure was severely criticized by the BJP, which termed it unnecessary when farmers are committing suicide.
However, Koliwad citied space crunch, difficulty in organizing meetings and justified the renovation activity.
While Siddaramaiah was blamed by some of his party leaders for Congress defeat and rumours making rounds of him being sidelined in the new government, the swanky office allotted to him which was actually meant to be that of the Speaker’s has raised eyebrows.
