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BS Yediyurappa meets JP Nadda but gets no date for cabinet expansion
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa faces a tough proposition to fill up seven vacancies in the council of ministers with claimants far exceeding that number.
Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa on a day-long visit to New Delhi met BJP president JP Nadda but returned with no clear indication on when the much delayed cabinet expansion would take place.
“I have informed about the need for cabinet expansion at the earliest. He (Nadda) said that he would discuss and get back in two-three days,” Yediyurappa said after his meeting with Nadda.
He was accompanied by deputy CM Govind Karjol.
With the bypolls for RR Nagar and Sira over, there has been mounting pressure on Yediyurappa to expand the cabinet. Several former Congress and JD (S) legislators who had crossed over to the BJP and helped it to form government after toppling the coalition government are hoping for ministerial berths. Among them are MTB Nagaraj, AH Vishwanath, R Shankar and Munirathna.
The cabinet expansion exercise is an unenviable task for Yediyurappa with ‘loyalist’ BJP MLAs who are upset at being ignored also waiting to be inducted in the council of minsters. Several of them like Umesh Katti, Raju Gowda, Murugesh Nirani, Renukacharya, Thippeswamy and others have publicly declared that they are in the running to become ministers.
Asked whether it would be a mere cabinet expansion or restructuring too with some ministers being dropped and others inducted, Yediyurappa said ‘We will have to wait and see what the party high command directs us to do.”
Karnataka can have a maximum of 34 ministers including the CM and currently there are seven vacancies.
Last week, Yediyurappa had said that the cabinet expansion was postponed further as the party high command was busy with ministry formation in Bihar.
