Lakshmi Hebbalkar is the only woman in the 34-member cabinet, which has struck a balance between castes and communities. , photo credit: db patil
The Congress government in Karnataka is set for its second expansion on Saturday with the swearing-in ceremony of 24 ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru.
not a member
23 out of 24 are MLAs and NS Boseraju is not a member of either House of the Karnataka Legislature. After taking oath of 24 ministers at 11.45 am, the total number of the cabinet will be 34.
Lakshmi Hebbalkar, elected from the Belagavi Rural constituency, is the lone woman legislator to be inducted into the ministry headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
The MLAs who took oath from Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Saturday are: HK Patil, Krishna Byre Gowda, N. Cheluvarayaswamy, K. Venkatesh, HC Mahadevappa, Ishwar Khandre, KN Rajanna, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Sharanbasappa Darsanapur, Shivanand Patil, Thimmapur Ramappa Balappa SS Mallikarjuna, Shivraj Tangdagi, Sharanprakash Rudrappa Patil, Mankal Vaidya, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Rahim Khan, D. Sudhakar, Santosh S. Lad, Byrathi Suresh, Madhu Bangarappa, MC Sudhakar, and B. Nagendra.
AICC secretary Bosaraju had served as an MLA twice and as an MLC once, though he is not currently a member of either house. A good number of Mr. Siddaramaiah’s loyalists seem to have flocked to the ministry.
Ms. Hebbalkar, Mr. Venkatesh, Mr. Byrathi Suresh, Mr. Madhu Bangarappa, Mr. Sudhakar, Mr. Mankal Vaidya, Mr. Rajanna, Mr. Boseraj and Mr. Nagendra will become Minister for the first time.
caste composition
The 34-member cabinet has six Vokkaligas, eight Veerashaiva-Lingayats, six OBCs, six from Scheduled Castes, three from Scheduled Tribes, two Muslims and one each from Jain, Brahmin and Christian communities. Legislators from different sects have been accommodated within the Veerashaiva-Lingayat. The allocation to different categories has been made keeping in mind next year’s Lok Sabha elections, which was a difficult balancing act.
After several rounds of talks with the party’s central leaders, Mr Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar reached a consensus on the names. He held talks with AICC chief M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala in Delhi.
Last Saturday, Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Shivakumar and eight ministers were sworn in in the first round. However, no allocation of portfolios has been made, which has drawn criticism from the BJP. The Congress countered this by referring to the weeks during the 2019 floods when the then chief minister BS Yediyurappa was the only minister in the cabinet.
who missed
Senior leader and MLC BK Hariprasad was reportedly miffed over the denial of his berth. Former deputy chief minister Laksham Savadi, who quit the BJP just before the election and joined the Congress, didn’t make it. Prominent among those who missed out are TB Jayachandra and RV Deshpande.