Dissatisfaction, intense lobbying ahead of Feb 6 cabinet

A wave of dissatisfaction has hitthe six-month-old BJP government against the backdrop of ChiefMinister B S Yediyurappa's announcement to induct 13 aspirants in the second cabinet expansion on February 6.

In the first cabinet expansion, the Chief Minister hadinducted 17 ministers on August 20, 2019.

Among the 13, ten will be those defectors from Congress and the JD(S) who were disqualified earlier and won the assembly by-election in December last year.

The rest will be the 'native BJP leaders', as DeputyChief Minister Govind Karjol put it.

Speculations are rife that Mahadevapura MLA Arvind Limbavali, Hukkeri MLA Umesh Katti and C P Yogeshwar, who hadlost to H D Kumaraswamy from Channapatna assembly segment,would be inducted.

If Yogeshwar is included in the cabinet then he will bethe second minister after Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadiwho had lost and yet made it to the cabinet.

The possible induction of Yogeshwar and Savadi, who was made Deputy Chief Minister despite losing the Assembly elections, are also a "reason" for discontent in the BJP.

Hectic activities began in the power corridor and MLAsstarted forming groups to impress upon the Chief Minister toinclude their members in the ministry.

While one group was from the "Kalyana Karnataka" region, the others were the defectors who will be excluded in the cabinet expansion.

A few MLAS from 'Kalyana Karnataka' region or erstwhileHyderabad-Karnataka region comprising six districts, met atthe Legislature Home and held a meeting.

The meeting was led by Shorapur MLA Narasimha Nayak akaRaju Gouda and Honnalli MLA M P Renukacharya.

The MLAs of theKalyana Karnataka region were unanimous that their backward region should get representation in the cabinet.

Later, Gouda met the Chief Minister and requested that their region be given adequate representation in the cabinet, which is lacking development.

Talking to reporters, Gouda said, "We had given representations to all the MPs, MLAs and the Chief Minister. Today also we all had a meeting and later called on the ChiefMinister requesting him to make any MLA from our region aminister."
"If you givepreference to the defeated candidates then what will happen tothose who won the election? Where should the winners ofelection go? We emphasise upon giving preference to thewinners."
When he was reminded of Yediyurappa's statement that therewere legal complications in making him a minister, Vishwanathsaid, "This government has legal experts and the advocategeneral. They will speak."