The swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D K Shivakumar will be attended by 'like-minded leaders', but Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has not been invited, according to reports.
Saturday's ceremony in Bengaluru will have the presence of at least nine chief ministers, including Tamil Nadu's MK Stalin and West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee.
Chief Ministers of Bihar (Nitish Kumar), Chhattisgarh (Bhupesh Baghel), Rajasthan (Ashok Gehlot), Himachal Pradesh (Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu), Jharkhand (Hemant Soren), Telangana (K Chandrashekar Rao), Odisha (Naveen Patnaik) have also been invited by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Siddaramaiah rang up Stalin while Kharge also personally called CPI general secretary D Raja and he has confirmed his participation at the swearing in.
AICC general secretary, K C Venugopal said: "We are inviting the like-minded party leaders to be the part of swearing in ceremony."
Former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have also confirmed their participations.
Besides, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav and Jammu & Kashmir National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah have also been invited.
Sources said around 20 ministers will also be sworn in along with the chief minister and deputy chief minister, including some from the state legislative council.
(With PTI inputs)
