Bengaluru: Forest minister R Shankar is likely to be dropped from the state cabinet soon. According to the sources in the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), the party wants to drop him from the cabinet as he secured a berth in the party quota.

“He is not a familiar Kuruba face. He has got a minister post in the Congress quota and this is JDS government. If he wants to continue as the minister, let him become a minister from the JDS quota,” said a senior Congress leader.

It is said that the JDS wants R Shankar to be replaced by MTB Nagaraj as the forest minister.
According to the sources, Congress leadership now feel that R Shankar has no backing from any leader.

“At the maximum, we can give him a board president post under the party quota. With more than 20 MLAs threatening to quit the party we want the post for our senior MLAs,” said party leaders.