New Delhi: At least 20 to 24 new ministers are now scheduled to be inducted in the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka on Sat...
New Delhi: At least 20 to 24 new ministers are now scheduled to be inducted in the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka on Saturday, party sources said on Thursday.
Karnataka chief minister
Siddaramaiah, and deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar had met party general
secretaries K.C. Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala to discuss the cabinet
expansion on Thursday.
The meeting of the four leaders
lasted for over five hours in three sessions where the names of several MLAs
for ministerial posts were discussed, the source said.
The source said that 20 to 24 more
ministers will take oath on Saturday around 11.30 a.m.
Senior leaders remain tight-lipped on the development.
The party source said that te names of
20 to 24 probables were discussed and sent to party chief Mallikarjuna Kharge
for taking a final call.
The source said that before leaving
for Bengaluru, both leaders will also meet former party chief Rahul Gandhi.
Along with Siddaramaiah and
Shivakumar, who took oath last Saturday in Bengaluru in the presence of top
party leaders and several prominent opposition leaders, eight more ministers —
G. Parmeshwara, K.H. Muniyappa, K.J. George, M.B. Patil, Satish Jarkiholi,
Priyanka Kharge, Ramalimga Reddy and B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan — had taken oath.
However, none of them have been
allocated any portfolio yet.
The source said that the Congress
will have to bring balance in the cabinet allocation as it needs to balance of
demands of different communities in the cabinet.
The politically crucial Lingayat
community, who voted in favour of the party have claimed for the CM post,
but in the absence of a CM from the community, it is speculated that a chunk of
ministerial berths will go to Lingayat MLAs.
The source said that most of the
ministers are to be from the Siddamaraiah camp whereas Shivakumar will get at
least three to four portfolios with two prominent departments.
The party source said that Krishna
Byre Gowda, Laxman Savadi, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Saleem Ahmed, Santosh Lad, Dinesh
Gundu Rao, HK Patil, Eshwar Khandre, Tanveer Seth, Dr H.C.Mahadevappa, BK Reddy
and BK Hariprasad are among the probable ministers in the list.
No comments