Bangalore: Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Dharam Singh will be the new Chief Minister of Karnataka and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leader Siddaramaiah is to be the Deputy Chief Minister under an agreement reached between the two parties to form a coalition Government in the State where Assembly polls produced a fractured verdict.

Dharam Singh said he would take oath tomorrow (May 28, 2004) and both the parties have agreed to adopt the Maharashtra model of power-sharing under which the number one slot goes to Congress and the number to go Janata Dal-S.

The announcement about power-sharing agreement was made by Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, late tonight (May 27, 2004) after a day of hectic developments which saw the talks on Government-formation going into top gear.

During the day, Dharam Singh met Gandhi, while JD-S president and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda held consultations with Siddaramaiah, who is also the Karnataka JD-S chief.

Gowda was then closeted with senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and in-charge of Karnataka Vilasrao Deshmukh as also Dharam Singh to break the logjam arising out of the fractured verdict.