Bengaluru: A full-fledged cabinet has been formed in Karnataka, with 24 ministers sworn in on Saturday, nearly a fortnight after the Congress won the assembly polls with a thumping majority.
Ten ministers, including CM Siddaramaiah and deputy CM DK Shivakumar, were sworn in last week. This is the first time in recent times that a new government has managed to install a full-strength cabinet of 34 ministers in such a short time. Portfolios are likely to be distributed later.
Of the 34 members in Siddaramaiah’s cabinet, including the CM, eight belong to the politically significant Lingayat community, five are Vokkaligas, including Shivakumar, six are from the SC, three from the ST, two each from the Kuruba and Muslim communities, one Brahmin, and the remaining from OBC.
Among the surprise omissions from the cabinet are former CM Jagadish Shettar and former deputy CM Laxman Savadi, who jumped ship to join Congress from BJP just before the assembly elections and helped tilt the Lingayat vote bank in favour of the grand old party. They had deserted BJP after being denied tickets.
Siddaramaiah later allocated portfolios to ministers in his cabinet, keeping the finance department with himself while assigning the irrigation and Bengaluru City Development departments to Shivakumar. G Parameshwara, who has previously handled the home department, has once again been allocated the portfolio, MB Patil is the new large and medium industries minister while KJ Geroge has been given the energy department portfolio.
Apart from the finance department, the chief minister, who has presented 13 state budgets, has kept cabinet affairs, department of personnel and administrative reforms, intelligence, information, IT and BT, infrastructure development and all unallocated portfolios.
DK Shivakumar has got the all-important Major and Medium Irrigation and Bengaluru City Development, including the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Development Authority, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited.