In a major development the Congress and Janata Dall Secular at Bengaluru announced that they will fight the 2019 general elections together as a pre-poll alliance. Senior Congress leader KC Venugopal announced on Friday after the two parties reached an agreement on Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s cabinet.  Ending the speculation on who would hold Finance portfolio , the Congress leader said that the crucial finance ministry to the JD(S) and the home department and the Bengaluru city development will remain with the Congress.

The two alliance partners have also formed a coalition coordination and monitoring committee under the leadership of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The coordination committee will meet at least once every month and will, apart from smoothing the rough edges of running the government together, clear every appointment to statutory boards and organisations.

Janata Dal ( Secular) General Secretary Danish Ali of the JDS will be its convenor. Speaking to News Basics he said,”We are hopeful that the alliance will bring positive results and help both the parties grow”

The alliance will also come up with a common agenda for governance based on the manifestos of the two partners.

The coalition partners had been locked in endless negotiations in Bengaluru and New Delhi over who would get the plum portfolios. The finance ministry was believed to have been the sticking point but the Congress decided to give the portfolio to its partner on Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s direction who intervened.

Friday’s announcement suggested the two sides had attempted to work out the distribution of powers in great detail to ensure that the last-minute coalition does not fall apart.

For example, the two partners who face the uphill task of keeping their flock together, have agreed to share the frills of power – posts in statutory bodies – in proportion of their strength. The Congress will get to nominate is nominees in two-third of these bodies; the JDS gets the remaining one-third. The decision to run every such appointment past the coordination committee will ensure that if either partner has a concern about the other’s nominees, it can share its views.

At Friday’s briefing, the two parties said they had agreed on the 12 portfolios that will go to the JDS and another 22 that will accrue to the Congress. The rest of the cabinet will be sworn in on the 6th June , 2018.