Cong planning to make K'taka CM swearing-in ceremony a show of Oppn strength

The swearing in of Siddaramaiah as Karnataka Chief Minister will become a show of strength by the Opposition with the Congress deciding to extend invitations to top leaders from the non-BJP bloc for the Saturday event in Bengaluru.

Sources said the list of invitees are being drawn up. The party is expected to extend invitations to Chief Ministers MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu - DMK), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal - Trinamool Congress), Nitish Kumar (Bihar - JD-U), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha - BJD), K Chandrasekhar Rao (Telangana - BRS) and Hemant Soren (Jharkhand - JMM).

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Other leaders who will be in the invite list include NCP's Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Uddhav Thackeray, CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury, National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, CPI's D Raja, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav (RJD) among others.

A senior leader said the party has not taken a call on whether to invite AAP. Sources said invitations are also being extended to some smaller and regional parties.

This will be the first venue to display Opposition unity after the parties have started the reaching out exercise in the past couple of months.

Opposition parties have seen the Congress victory in Karnataka as a positive sign for the Opposition in general and the Congress in particular.

While Congress is expected to use it to assert its position in the Opposition bloc, Banerjee has said that she is willing to support the Congress in states where it is strong if it reciprocates in West Bengal. Her views that Congress should leave its weaker areas to regional parties found support in Akhilesh.

Even if they are invited, it is to be seen whether leaders like Mamata and Kejriwal would attend the ceremony.