Bengaluru: Karnataka is set to induct 24 legislators as Cabinet ministers on Saturday, a week after the Congress government assumed power in the southern state. Earlier ten cabinet ministers including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar were sworn in on May 20. Karnataka can have a total of 34 ministers in its cabinet.
The swearing-in will is scheduled to take place at 11:45 am at the Raj Bhavan, the Chief Ministers's Office informed. The newly expanded Cabinet will include MLAs H K Patil, Krishna Byregowda, N Cheluvarayaswamy, K Venkatesh, H C Mahadevappa, Congress working president Eshwar Khandre and former state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao.
Kyathasandra N Rajanna, Sharanabasappa Darshanapur, Shivanand Patil, Ramappa Balappa Timmapur, S S Mallikarjun, Shivaraj Sangappa Tangadagi, Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil, Mankal Vaidya, Laxmi Hebbalkar, Rahim Khan, D Sudhakar, Santosh Lad, N S Boseraju, Suresha B S, Madhu Bangarappa, M C Sudhakar and B Nagendra are others who are set to take oath.
Congress sources informed that Laxmi Hebbalkar, Madhu Bangarappa, D Sudhakar, Cheluvaraya Swami, Mankul Vaidya and M C Sudhakar are close to Deputy Chief Minister Shivakumar, one of the strong contenders to the top post in the state before the Congress high command settled for Siddaramaiah.
Also read: Karnataka Cabinet expansion on Saturday: Surjewala
The Congress Cabinet figures six Lingayats, four Vokkaligas, three from Scheduled Castes, two from Scheduled Tribes and five from Other Backward Communities -- Kuruba, Raju, Maratha, Ediga and Mogaveera, and one Brahmin. In terms of region-wise representation, seven ministers each are from Old Mysuru and Kalyana Karnataka regions, six from Kittur Karnataka region and two from central Karnataka.
An official statement from the Chief Minister's Office said that Siddaramaiah has balanced caste, region-wise representation as well as senior and junior MLAs in his new Cabinet. The statement also mentioned that the cabinet will have eight Lingayats, five Vokkaligas, including Shivakumar and nine Scheduled Caste ministers. The portfolios for the ministers who will be sworn in will be announced by Saturday evening, State Minister K H Muniyappa said.
Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar had intense deliberations with top central Congress leaders, including AICC general secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala to decide the names of the 24 Karnataka MLAs who will be inducted into the Siddaramaiah cabinet.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi gave the final nod to the list. Though differences came up between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar over the names of the ministers, they were sorted out later on during the discussions.
All the central Congress leaders as well as Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren left for Bengaluru for the oath-taking ceremony on Saturday.
