After days of hectic deliberations, the Congress party has finalised the list of 24 Karnataka MLAs who will take the oath as ministers in the Siddaramaiah-led government on Saturday, according to people familiar with the matter. As many as eight ministers along with the chief minister and his deputy have already taken oath on May 20. The first cabinet expansion will take the number of ministers in the Karnataka government to 34, the maximum allowed in the 224-member assembly.
The list of probable ministers who are likely to take oath on Saturday includes Dinesh Gundu Rao, Krishna Byre Gowda, Eshwar Khandre, Raheem Khan, Santosh Lad, K N Rajanna, Peeriyapattana Venkatesh, H C Mahadevappa, Byrathi Suresh, Shivaraj Tangadagi, R B Timmapur and B Nagendra, all of whom are considered close to Siddaramaiah.
Those MLAs in the list considered close to DK Shivakumar include Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Madhu Bangarappa, D Sudhakar, Cheluvaraya Swami, Mankul Vaidya and M C Sudhakar. N S Boseraju is the lone MLC whose name has been approved in the list of new ministers to be included in the state cabinet.
Karnataka Congress in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala on Friday said that the state Cabinet expansion will take place on Saturday. Surjewala told reporters that the decision on Cabinet expansion rests in chief minister Siddaramaiah’s court, who told him that the swearing-in of the extended cabinet will be held tomorrow.
“Decision to form a cabinet and who to include in the cabinet is of Chief Minister. Siddaramaiah has discussed various names with the party, we have now left it for him to decide… I was told by him (Siddaramaiah) that the further extended cabinet will be sworn-in tomorrow, in Karnataka,” Surjewala said.
Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have been in the national capital for the last three days and they have held several rounds of discussions. The final list was approved after discussions with Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, reported PTI.
Here’s the list of ministers expected to take oath:
- H.K. Patil
- Krishna Byre Gowda
- N. Cheluvarayaswamy
- K. Venkatesh
- H.C. Mahadevappa
- Eshwar Khandre
- Kyathasandra N. Rajanna
- Dinesh Gundu Rao
- Sharanabasappa Darshanapur
- Shivanand Patil
- Timmapur Ramappa Balappa
- S. S. Mallikarjun
- Tangadagi Shivaraj Sangappa
- Sharanaprakash Rudrappa
- Patil Mankal Vaidya
- Laxmi R. Hebbalkar
- Rahim Khan
- D. Sudhakar
- Santhosh S. Lad
- N.S. Boseraju
- Suresha. B.S.
- Madhu Bangarappa
- Dr. M.C. Sudhakar
- B. Nagendra
