A Busy Tamil Nadu CM Vijay To Skip Keralam Swearing In Ceremony

Efforts of the Congress leadership to include Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay in the swearing in ceremony of United Democratic Front CM V D Satheesan in Keralam on May 18 has apparently not succeeded. Taking a cue from PM Modi who makes it a point to showcase NDA strength whenever BJP forms government in a state, the Congress too thought it would showcase the long-standing bond between TVK supremo Vijay and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.  Though Vijay has accepted post-poll support of five Congress MLAs in TN and even visited Satya Murthy Bhawan in Chennai, he is yet to formally expand his cabinet to include those MLAs who backed his government during trust vote. Congress sources said CM Vijay would not be attending the Keralam swearing in. He is clearly too focussed on governance issues. If at all he travels, his first trip will be only to Delhi to meet with PM Modi and other leaders in Delhi. That leaves only three Congress CMs — Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Revanth Reddy (Telangana) and Sukhvinder Singh Sukku (Himachal Pradesh) — who will be present at the function at Thiruvananthapuram. Both Rahul and his sister Priyanka who is Wayanad Lok Sabha MP will attend, so too Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. Karnataka’s deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar will also be present.