Karnataka BJP in a huddle as end of chief Nalin Kumar Kateel’s tenure, Bommai cabinet’s anniversary near

“This is about the party organisation and how to strengthen the party. There are also political issues about the forthcoming elections and how they should be fought and what issues must be raised. There may be other issues as well. There will be an open discussion. There will be members of the core committee and our cabinet who will be participating, as also important dignitaries. There will be over 50 people participating,” Bommai said.

With the Bommai government set to complete one year on July 28–following B S Yediyurappa’s two-year reign–the BJP is expected to ring in large-scale changes in the administration after next week’s presidential polls. The tenure of the party’s state chief will end on August 8.

“Changes are expected in August because if they do not carry out changes, it will be a disaster. There has been a collapse of the administration,” a senior BJP leader said, acknowledging that many legislators were unhappy over being denied positions in the government.

Bommai effected the first set of changes this week by cancelling the appointments of nearly 30 members of boards and corporations from 2019 to accommodate a fresh set of BJP workers and legislators.

Bommai’s 34-member cabinet incidentally has had five vacancies for several months even as ministerial aspirants’ hopes rose and fell on the over-10 occasions that the chief minister forayed to the national capital to meet party leaders.

“It has been decided at the core committee meeting held six months ago to replace the heads of various boards and corporations who have been serving for over one and a half years in order to give an opportunity for others,” Bommai said this week.

There has been speculation of sweeping changes in cabinet as well in the run-up to the 2023 polls. The government has been hit by a bevy of corruption charges in recent weeks–the allegations over the sub-inspector recruitment scam and the Karnataka High Court’s questions on the functioning of Anti-Corruption Bureau being the latest few.

Although the changes in the appointments to boards and corporations were seen as an attempt to remove partymen considered to be loyal to Yediyurappa, leaders in the BJP said that many of the Yediyurappa loyalists kept their positions.