Congress Clears Karnataka Cabinet Expansion, Approves 20 New Ministers To Take Government to Full Strength After Two Months

Bengaluru: Exactly two months after he took oath with 13 ministers on June 3, the Congress high command has given green signal to induct 20 more ministers, completing the State cabinet forming exercise.

Besides, the party has also approved to elect new Speaker and Deputy Speaker for the Legislative Assembly as well as to appoint new Chairman and Deputy Chairman for the Legislative Council.

Since there were more than 60 aspirants for the 20 vacant posts, there were pressures from both AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge and the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to accommodate their supporters into the cabinet. Besides Chief Minister D K Shivakumar's list, Rahul Gandhi himself was of the opinion that 40% of the cabinet should be represented by young, first time elected members.

However, in the run up to the election, the senior party leaders were vary of having a large number of inexperienced members as ministers. It took a long time for the AICC core group to convince Rahul Gandhi that only a couple of newcomers could be accommodated, since the party could not afford to antagonise the senior leaders, who would have grip over their respective districts.

Going by the list, D K Shivakumar seems to have had his way to a large extent in having his cabinet colleagues. While B Nagendra, against whom the CBI has filed a charge sheet in ₹ 83 crore Valmiki Nigam Limited scam has found his way back into the cabinet, Madhu Bangarappa, who was in the eye of the storm over goofing up in the primary education department is also in the list of ministers. Both are staunch followers of D K Shivakumar and he also managed to accommodate H C Balakrishna from his own home district of Bengaluru South, N Cheluvarayaswamy and Shivalinge Gowda in the Vokkaliga quota, taking the number of Vokkaliga ministers in the cabinet to five.

However, Shivakumar could not accommodate his supporters Shivananda Patil, Tanvir Sait and Laxmi Hebbalkar, while had to to helplessly watch his baiters Zameer Ahamed Khan and Santhosh Lad joining the cabinet.

Meanwhile, AICC President M Mallikarjun Kharge could not ensure Sharath Bacche Gowda, a close associate of Minister Priyank Kharge to the cabinet. Even Siddaramaiah could not ensure his close confidant Dr H C Mahadevappa getting a cabinet berth.

In total, the party has managed to balance the caste configuration in the cabinet, with extending seven cabinet berths to Lingayats and the additional post of G S Patil as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. There are five Vokkaliga leaders, which is the second largest community. For the first time, Karnataka has seven SC ministers, three from right, two from left, one Lambani and one Bovi community. Besides, there are three ST ministers, taking the SC/ST representation to over 30% in the cabinet.

Among the minorities, there are four ministers -- 3 Muslims and one Christian and also the Chairman post for the Legislative Council has been given to Salim Ahamed. There are seven ministers from backward class.