Karnataka got a full Cabinet on Saturday as 24 new ministers were administered oath by Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot at the Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru. The cabinet expansion comes two weeks after the Congress came to power with a resounding mandate in the state, and a week after Siddaramaiah took oath as Chief Minister alongside Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and eight other ministers on May 20.
The induction of the 24 new ministers takes the Cabinet to its full strength of 34 in the 224-member Karnataka Legislative Assembly. The ministers who took oath include eight Lingayats, including the sole woman minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar and seven from Scheduled Caste (SC) communities.
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The ministers’ list also includes five Vokkaligas, two Muslims, three from Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities, six from Other Backward Classes (OBC) groups, one Brahmin, one Christian, and one Jain.
Here is the full list of ministers who took oaths today:
- HK Patil
- Krishna Byregowda
- N Chaluvarayaswamy
- K. Venkatesh
- Dr. H.C. Mahadevappa
- Eshwar Khandre
- Kyathasandra N. Rajanna
- Sharanabasappa Darshanapur
- Dinesh Gundu Rao
- Shivanand Patil
- Timmapur Ramappa Balappa
- S S Mallikarjun
- Shivaraj Sangappa Tangadagi
- Dr Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil
- Mankal Vaidya
- Laxmi Hebbalkar
- Rahim Khan
- D Sudhakar
- Santosh Lad
- N. S. Boseraju
- Suresha BS
- Madhu Bangarappa
- Dr. M.C. Sudhakar
- B Nagendra
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The Cabinet expansion was finalized after intense deliberations and even back and forth on the choice of ministers. The final list of ministers was dispatched to the office of the Governor on Friday night following Siddaramaiah’s return from Delhi. According to the Chief Minister, the Congress had followed the norms of “providing equal representation to all castes and regions while keeping in mind the principles of social justice” while selecting the ministers.
The list includes several Congress veterans like HK Patil, Dr HC Mahadevappa, Eshwar Khandre, Sharanabasappa Darshanapur and Shivanand Patil, the absence of senior party leaders like RV Deshpande and TB Jayachandra is notable. The distribution of portfolios is expected on Sunday.
In the recently-concluded Karnataka Assembly elections, Congress bagged an impressive 135 seats, displacing the Basavaraj Bommai-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state. The BJP won 66 seats and the JD(S), 19.