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Making a break from the recent practice of leaving a few ministerial posts vacant as a tool to tackle dissidence later, the newly-formed Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka has now filled up all the 34 berths available in the Cabinet in two batches.
A contingent of 24 new ministers from various castes and regions were administered their oaths Saturday by Karnataka Governor Thawarchand Gehlot at Glass House of the Raj Bhavan, which took the strength of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s ministry to its full-capacity at 34.
One week ago, the first batch of eight ministers — which, like the current group, also reflected the rainbow coalition of castes and communities that helped the Congress score a resounding victory by winning 135 of the total 224 seats in the May 10 Assembly polls — took their oaths of office along with CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar at a grand event in the presence of the Congress top brass and the leading Opposition faces, including CMs, from across the country.
Siddaramaiah has stated that the Congress has followed the norms of “providing equal representation to all castes and regions while keeping in mind the principles of social justice” while choosing the ministers.
The Congress move to induct all 34 ministers right in the beginning marked a shift from practices in recent years — followed by the previous governments led by the BJP, Congress-JD(S) and even the Congress itself — of keeping a handful of cabinet posts vacant in a bid to tackle disgruntlement among MLAs denied these berths.
The move is also seen as an attempt to make up for the delay of nearly five days in choosing the CM candidate after the May 13 Assembly election results and also to get the government going as soon as possible since the Congress has made major poll pledges to the voters.
“We have formed a full-fledged Cabinet, we have filled all 34 berths and all ministers are Cabinet ministers. We have not appointed first-time MLAs as ministers. We have appointed MLAs who have been elected more than once. There are new faces and old faces. It is a mix of youth and experience,” CM Siddaramaiah said. He said it has been done “to fulfil the promises made to the people and to meet the widespread desire for change among people”.
The party is expected to effect a wholesale change of the Cabinet in 30 months if an unwritten and formally undisclosed agreement of dividing the CM tenure between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar is followed.
The portfolios for the 34 ministers is expected to be allocated over the next couple of days with discussions on this front already concluded during the recent visit of the CM and the DCM to New Delhi to consult AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge and other senior Congress leaders.
As many as nine of the 24 new ministers sworn in on Saturday have no prior ministerial experience. They include K Venkatesh from Periyapatna in Mysore, K N Rajanna from Madhugiri in Tumkur, Mankal Vaidya from Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada, Lakshmi Hebbalkar from Belagavi Rural, unelected N S Boseraju of Raichur, Byrathi Suresh from
Hebbal in Bengaluru, Madhu Bangarappa from Sorab in Shivamogga, M C Sudhakar from Chintamani in Chikkaballapur, and B Nagendra from Bellary.
The new ministers mostly took their oaths in the name of God with the exceptions being K N Rajanna, who took his oath in the name of Valmiki Nayak, the saint and author of the Ramayana, who is revered by the Scheduled Tribe (ST) Valmiki Nayak community, and the names of the Lingayat saint Basavanna and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
The lone woman minister in Siddaramaiah’s Cabinet, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, a Panchamasali Lingayat, took her oath in the name of Basavanna, Chatrapati Shivaji, Dr Ambedkar, her voters and her mother. She is a two-term MLA and a close associate of Shivakumar.
Former sports minister Rahim Khan, a four-time MLA from the Bidar constituency, took his oath in the name of Allah. Rahim is the second of two Muslim ministers in the Cabinet. Last week, the MLA from Chamarajpet in Bengaluru, B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, was inducted into the ministry.
The ministers’ caste break-up in the new Congress Cabinet is: Lingayat — 8 (including one woman); Vokkaliga — 5; Scheduled Castes (SCs) — 7; STs — 3; OBCs — 6; Muslim — 2; Brahmin — 1, Jain — 1; and Christian — 1.
The new ministers belonging to the Lingayat community are Hebbalkar, Belagavi Rural, Panchamasali (sub-caste); Shivananand Patil, Basavana Bagewadi, Panchamasali; Eshwar Khandre, Bhalki, Banajiga; Sharanprakash Patil, Sedam, Adi Banajiga; Sharanabasappa Darshanapur, Shahapur, Reddy Lingayat; and S S Mallikarjun, Davangere North, Sadar Lingayat.
Veteran leader and Siddaramaiah associate M B Patil, was inducted earlier on May 20. Patil, who belongs to the Namdhari Reddy community, is also sometimes considered to be from the Lingayat community.
The new ministers from the Vokkaliga community are N Cheluvaraya Swamy, Nagamangala; K Venkatesh, Periyapatna; M C Sudhakar, Chintamani; and Krishna Byregowda, Byatarayanapura. Shivakumar is also a Vokkaliga.
The new SC ministers are Shivaraj Tangadagi, Kanakagiri, SC BhovI; Rudrappa Lamani, Haveri, SC Lambani; H C Mahadevappa, T Narasipura, SC Right; and R B Thimmapur, Bagalkot, SC Left. The Congress earlier inducted three Dalit leaders in the Cabinet, who include G Parameshwara, Koratagere, SC Right; K H Muniyappa, Devanahalli, SC Left; and Priyank Kharge, Chittapur, SC Right.
The new ST ministers are K N Rajanna, Madhugiri, and B Nagendra from Bellary Rural. Both of them belong to the Valmiki Nayak community like the already inducted minister Satish Jarkiholi.
The new OBC ministers include Byrathi Suresh, Hebbal, Kuruba; Mankal Vaidya, Bhatkal, Mogaveera; Madhu Bangarappa, Sorab, Ediga; Santosh Lad, Kalghatgi, Maratha; and N S Boseraju, unelected, Raju community. Siddaramaiah belongs to the OBC Kuruba community.
Rahim Khan is the second Muslim in the Cabinet now after the induction of Zameer Ahmed on May 20. D Sudhakar is from the minority Jain community while Dinesh Gundu Rao is a Brahmin.
Senior Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy, who was inducted earlier, is from the Reddy community, while K J George is a Christian.
No MLCs have been inducted as ministers. A surprise inclusion in the list of ministers is former AICC and KPCC functionary N Boseraju, who is not a member of either the Assembly or the Legislative Council. He is known to have worked for decades as a liaison functionary between the party’s central and state units.
Boseraju’s son was an aspirant for the party ticket in the Assembly polls from Raichur City but made way for a Muslim candidate in view of the community’s sizeable population there. This move is believed to have helped the Congress in several seats in the region.
The sons of two former Karnataka Congress CMs, R Gundu Rao and S Bangarappa, have been made ministers. Gundu Rao’s son Dinesh Gundu Rao has become a minister for the second time, while Bangarappa’s son Madhu Bangarappa, a member of the OBC Ediga community, has become a minister for the first time.
As many as 12 ministers in the Cabinet have been associated with Siddaramaiah since his days in the JD(S), who include N Cheluvaraya Swamy, K Venkatesh, H C Mahadevappa, K N Rajanna, Satish Jarkiholi, Zameer Ahmed, Sharanabasappa Darshanapur, R B Thimmapur, Shivaraj Tangadagi, Santhosh Lad, and Byrathi Suresh. Krishna Byregowda’s father was a former minister.
The Congress has picked six ministers from the Bengaluru region, who include Ramalinga Reddy, BTM Layout; K J George, Sarvagnanagar; Zameer Ahmed, Chamarajpet; Krishna Byregowda, Bytarayanapura; Byrathi Suresh, Hebbal; and Dinesh Gundu Rao from Gandhi Nagar.
Following the swearing-in of the new ministers, Siddaramaiah said he had convinced one Congress MLA Puttaranaga Setty, who did not find a place in the Cabinet, to take up the role of the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly. “The distribution of portfolios will be completed today or tomorrow,” the CM said.
