Bengaluru: A total of 24 legislators, including one woman MLA, joined the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka Saturday after the party high command approved the list, taking the total strength of the Cabinet to 34. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhavan.
Earlier, the party had inducted 8 MLAs, along with Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar, on 20 May.
The expansion was announced late Friday after intense deliberations in Delhi among Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.
However, portfolio allocation is still being discussed as ministers are lobbying for important departments, people aware of the developments told ThePrint. “It will probably happen today or tomorrow,” Siddaramaiah told media persons in Bengaluru Saturday morning.
Lakshmi Hebbalkar is the sole woman legislator in the 34-member Cabinet. Among other prominent leaders making the second list are Krishna Byre Gowda, Eshwar Khandre, H.C. Mahadevappa, Madhu Bangarappa, S.S. Mallikarjun and Dinesh Gundu Rao.
In the second list, there are four members of the Vokkaliga community, six Lingayats, five from communities classified as backward classes, one each from Scheduled Caste left & right divisions, one from Bhovi community (SC-others) two from Scheduled Tribe, and one each from minority communities of Muslim, Jains, Brahmin and Namdhari Reddy.
“I was confident of becoming a minister but we understand the challenges since all factors have to be weighed in. There are 135 legislators and I have been given an opportunity,” Madhu Bangarappa told reporters in Bengaluru Saturday.
The new Congress government remains true to the dominant caste theory in which Lingayats and Vokkaligas continue to get the highest representation in the government. There are seven Lingayats and six Vokkaligas, including Shivakumar, in the new Cabinet.
But several prominent leaders missed out on Cabinet berths. Legislators from Karnataka have been camping in Delhi to lobby for ministerial berths.
B.K. Hariprasad, the former deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House, and R.V. Deshpande, one of the senior most members of the legislature, have been left out. And so has Lakshman Sangappa Savadi, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister who switched to the Congress just before the 10 May polls.
Supporters of Tanveer Sait held protests in Mysuru Saturday after the six-time MLA was left out of the Cabinet.
Sources within the Congress said some of the leaders have been promised to be accommodated in the Cabinet reshuffle after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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