The Karnataka government can have 34 ministers. (To file)
Bengaluru:
A week after taking power in Karnataka, Congress on Friday released a list of 24 lawmakers who will be sworn in as ministers on May 27, according to party leaders.
The Karnataka government can have 34 ministers. Ten of them, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar, were sworn in on May 20.
MPs HK Patil, Krishna Byregowda, N Cheluvarayaswamy, K Venkatesh, HC Mahadevappa, incumbent Congress Speaker Eshwar Khandre and former State Congress Speaker Dinesh Gundu Rao are among those to be sworn in Saturday noon.
Others on the list are Kyathasandra N Rajanna, Sharanabasappa Darshanapur, Shivanand Patil, Ramappa Balappa Timmapur, SS Mallikarjun, Shivaraj Sangappa Tangadagi, Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil, Mankal Vaidya, Laxmi Hebbalkar, Rahim Khan, D Sudhakar, Santosh Lad, NS Boseraju, Suresha BS, Madhu Bangarappa, MC Sudhakar and B Nagendra.
Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Madhu Bangarappa, D Sudhakar, Cheluvaraya Swami, Mankul Vaidya and MC Sudhakar are close to Shivakumar, Congress sources say.
The Congress list includes the names of six Lingayats and four Vokkaligas.
Three MPs are from Scheduled Castes, two from Scheduled Tribes and five from other backward communities – Kuruba, Raju, Maratha, Ediga and Mogaveera.
In Dinesh Gundu Rao, Brahmins are also represented in the cabinet.
Seven ministers are each from Old Mysuru and Kalyana Karnataka regions, six from Kittur Karnataka region and two from Central Karnataka.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has struck a balance by giving representation by caste and region while respecting senior and junior MPs, according to an official statement.
He also said that the cabinet will have eight Lingayats. Within them, different sub-sects of the community were represented.
There will be five Vokkaligas, including Mr. Shivakumar, the statement said.
The cabinet will have nine scheduled caste ministers, he said.
Portfolios have not yet been assigned. Minister of State KH Muniyappa said the portfolios will be announced by Saturday evening.
Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivakumar have been in Delhi for three days and held several rounds of talks with the party leadership.
The names of the 24 MPs were decided after hours of hectic deliberations between Siddaramaiah, Mr Shivakumar and key central leaders, including AICC general secretaries KC Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and former party leader Rahul Gandhi gave the final nod to the list.
Earlier, the two Karnataka leaders also met Sonia Gandhi, for the first time after the formation of government in the state.
Differences between Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivakumar emerged over the names of likely ministers, but were settled during discussions, the sources said.
Meanwhile, all the leaders left for Bengaluru from Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony of the new ministers.
The Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, and his Jharkhand counterpart, Hemant Soren, also left with MM. Shivakumar and Surjewala for Saturday’s event.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
