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Siddaramaiah to get full cabinet as 24 Karnataka ministers set to be sworn-in today
The Congress announced the names of 24 more ministers late on Friday night, taking the strength of the cabinet to 34.
A week after chief minister Siddaramaiah, deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar and eight other ministers took oath of office, Karnataka will get a full cabinet on Saturday.
The Congress announced the names of 24 more ministers late on Friday night, taking the strength of the cabinet to 34, the maximum allowed under the law. The ministers are scheduled to take oath on Saturday.
Of the new names, six hail from the Lingayat community, four from the Vokkaliga community, three from scheduled castes, two from scheduled tribes, and five from other backward classes. The Muslim, Jain, Brahmin and Namdhari Reddy communities have one representative each in this list. Only one woman is part of the cabinet.
The announcement came after four days of hectic deliberations between Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and the Congress leadership in Delhi, attempting to strike a balance between the aspirations of leaders from different castes, regions and allegiances. This was made particularly tricky given the Congress’s impressive victory, the best in the state since 1989, winning 135 seats in the 224 member assembly.
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The list of ministers to be inducted included former state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao, and former cabinet minister HK Patil.
Laxmi Hebbalkar -- who won from Belagavi despite opposition from the influential Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and sugar baron Ramesh Jarkiholi -- is set to become the only woman member.
HC Mahadevappa, a Dalit leader and close confidante of Siddaramaiah, has made the list, as has Madhu Bangarappa, son of former chief minister S Bangarappa.
Krishna Byregowda, a Vokkaliga leader, and Rahim Khan also made the cut. Khan will be one of two Muslim faces in the new cabinet, with B Zameer Ahmed Khan one of the 10 men who took oath last week.
Significantly, former CM Jagdish Shettar, who lost his election, and former deputy CM Laxman Savadi, who won his seat, did not find a place. Both leaders had defected from the BJP to the Congress ahead of the elections.
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Until Friday, senior Congress leaders had indicated that they would induct Shettar into the cabinet and nominate him as a member of the legislative council. On Monday, for instance, senior Congress minister MB Patil had said, “The Congress party and our central leadership have discussed that we have brought him to the party and even though he has lost, we will accommodate him.”
Other senior leaders that did not find a place were former minister RV Deshpande and former Rajya Sabha MP BK Hariprasad.
The announcement came on a day both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar met Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi, with deliberations also held with party general secretaries KC Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala.
The CM also held talks with party president Mallikarjun Kharge. After a meeting with Sonia Gandhi on Friday, Shivakumar said, “Everything is fine.”
Surjewala said that the only person “authorised to decide” on the cabinet was the chief minister. “Siddaramaiah has informed me that he will be swearing in the additional ministers tomorrow,” he added.
KH Muniyappa, one of the 10 ministers who already took oath, also returned to Bengaluru from New Delhi on Friday said that the cabinet will be a mix of “seniors and young people.”
The Congress will now confront the challenge of assigning portfolios to its cabinet ministers, but Muniyappa indicated that a decision on these is also close. “By Saturday evening, portfolios have to be announced,” Muniyappa added.
