Gowda expands cabinet 21 ministers take oath

Four days after he took oath as chief minister of Karnataka, D V Sadananda Gowda on Monday expanded his cabinet with the induction of 21 new ministers drawn from both factions of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Karnataka governor H R Bhardwaj administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers at the Rajbhavan at 5.30 pm. Previous chief minister Yeddyurappa and K S Eshwarappa, BJP state unit president were present on the occasion.

“The remaining posts will be filled up within a week,” Gowda told reporters before heading to the Rajbhavan for the oath-taking ceremony.

However, there were no new faces in the first phase of the expansion. According to the consensus arrived at the meeting between the two factions of the party at the chief minister’s residence this afternoon, there will be no post of deputy chief minister for now. All the 21 ministers who took oath on Monday were ministers in the former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa cabinet and they are likely to retain their previous portfolios.

Of those inducted on Monday, 12 are from the Yeddyurappa faction, while the rest are from the Jagadish Shettar faction.

The new ministers are: Jagadish Shettar, R Ashoka, V S Acharya, C M Udasi, Govind M Karjol, Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri, S Suresh Kumar, Shobha Karandlaje, S A Ravindranath, Basavaraj Bommai, Murgesh R Nirani, Umesh Katti, S A Ramdas, Revu Naik Belamgi, C C Patil, Lakshmi Savadi, B N Bachche Gowda, A Narayanaswamy, V Somanna, M P Renukacharya and Krishna Palemar.

As expected, the powerful Reddy brothers, who were also indicted in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining — G Karunakar Reddy and G Janardhan Reddy and their confidante B Sriramulu — have been dropped. The others who were in the Yeddyurappa cabinet as cabinet rank ministers include Mumtaz Ali Khan, C H Vijay Shankar have been dropped in the first phase of the expansion. Surprisingly, V Somanna, former minister for housing, who was also indicted in the Lokayukta report, has been retained in the new cabinet.

Later, addressing a press conference, Sadananda Gowda said, “I have completed the first phase of cabinet expansion on Monday. Now, my government will focus on the development works in the state. Our aim is to make the state number one in the country.”

Gowda will be visiting Delhi on Tuesday to meet the members of party high command. He will also meet with the members of Parliament from the state and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Karnataka can have a 34-member ministry, including the chief minister. Among the 21 ministers, 10 belong to the dominant Lingayat community, four from the Brahmin community, three are Vokkaligas, and three belong to scheduled caste and one backward community.

The delay in the formation of ministry was due to the split in the party over the number of posts and the portfolios to be given to Gowda’s supporters and his rival former rural development minister Jagadish Shettar and his supporters.

Sadananda Gowda alone took oath on August 4, 2011 as the second BJP chief minister of Karnataka after defeating Shettar in secret ballot to the post of the leader of the BJP legislature party on August 3.

The two factions of BJP had been holding talks since Saturday to sort out the issue. BJP general secretary in charge of party affairs in the state Dharmendra Pradhan was present during the talks since Sunday.