Karnataka Cabinet expansion: 24 ministers inducted in Siddaramaiah Ministry

The Congress government in Karnataka expanded its cabinet on Saturday by inducting 24 ministers thereby filling all the 34 ministerial positions a week after assuming power in the stateGovernor Thaawarchand Gehlot administered the oath of office and secrecy to these 24 ministersThese ministers include 23 MLAs and the Congress high commands surprise candidate N S Boseraju who is neither an MLA nor an MLCBoseraju a former MLA and an MLC is the All India Congress Committee secretary Hailing from Raichur he is a committed Congress worker His name was cleared by the Congress high command yesterday a Congress leader told PTIThere were very rare instances of all the sanctioned ministerial positions being filled in Karnataka a Congress officebearer saidThe Karnataka government can have 34 ministers Ten of them including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar were sworn in on May 20Amid tight security the swearing in took place at the Raj BhavanMLAs H K Patil Krishna Byregowda N Cheluvarayaswamy K Venkatesh H C Mahadevappa Congress working president Eshwar Khandre and former state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao are among those who took oathOthers in the list are Kyathasandra N Rajanna Sharanabasappa Darshanapur Shivanand Patil Ramappa Balappa Timmapur S S Mallikarjun Shivaraj Sangappa Tangadagi Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil Mankal Vaidya Laxmi Hebbalkar Rahim Khan D Sudhakar Santosh Lad N S Boseraju Suresha B S Madhu Bangarappa M C Sudhakar and B NagendraDuring the oath taking ceremony supporters of those MLAs who were denied ministerial positions such as M Krishnappa a fourtime MLA who was also a minister in the previous Congress government led by Siddaramaiah raised slogans and held placards demanding cabinet berths for their leadersLaxmi Hebbalkar Madhu Bangarappa D Sudhakar Cheluvaraya Swami Mankul Vaidya and M C Sudhakar are close to Shivakumar according to Congress sourcesChief Minister Siddaramaiah has struck a balance by giving caste and regionwise representation along with giving due respect to senior as well as junior MLAs an official statement said on Friday nightIt also said the cabinet will have eight Lingayats Within them different subsects of the community have been given representationThere will be five Vokkaligas including Shivakumar the statement saidThe cabinet will have nine Scheduled Caste ministers it saidThe portfolios have not been allotted yet State Minister K H Muniyappa said the portfolios will be announced by eveningBoth Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar had been in Delhi for the past three days and had held several rounds of discussions with the party leadershipThe names of the 24 ministerial candidates were decided after hours of hectic deliberations between Siddaramaiah Shivakumar and the top central leaders including AICC general secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep SurjewalaCongress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi gave the final nod to the listEarlier the two Karnataka leaders also met Sonia Gandhi for the first time after government formation in the stateDifferences between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar had emerged over names of probable ministers but these were sorted out during the discussions the sources saidThe Congress stormed into the Vidhana Soudha by winning 135 seats in the 224member assembly leaving the ruling BJP as a distant second which won 66 seats while the JDS stood third with 19 seatsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever