Chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Thursday expanded his one-week-old ministry with the induction of five more ministers. This is the second expansion of his cabinet in the last four days.
The newly-inducted ministers are Raju Gowda (Surpur), C P Yogeshwar (Channapatna), Anand Asnotikar (Karwar), Balachandra Jarkiholi (Arabhavi) and Varthur Prakash, independent MLA from Kolar. The new ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by the governor of Karnataka H R Bhardwaj at Rajbhavan this evening.
While, Asnotikar and Jarkiholi got ministerial berth for the second time, three others have been made ministers for the first time. Both of them were ministers in the B S Yeddyurappa cabinet and lost power after they rebelled against Yeddyurappa last October. All five took oath as cabinet rank ministers. With this, the total number of cabinet rank ministers in the Gowda cabinet has gone up to 26.
On August 8, Gowda had expanded his ministry by inducting 21 ministers. On Thursday’s expansion, the ministry will have seven vacancies. Gowda took oath as chief minister on August 4 following the resignation of Yeddyurappa after his indictment in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining.
The high command has finally accommodated Varthur Prakash, who has been supporting the government since October last year. He had extended support to the government after 11 rebel MLAs and five other independent MLAs withdrew support to the Yeddyurappa government.
The powerful Reddy brothers — G Karunakar and G Janardhan — and their associate B Sreeramulu were left out again. Sringeri MLA D N Jeevaraj, who recently quit as government chief whip with hopes of joining the ministry, has not been considered for the ministerial berth by the high command.
Sadananda Gowda was forced to go in for the second cabinet expansion after the
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Jagadish Shettar faction in the state BJP threatened to resign if his supporters were not included in the cabinet immediately. The chief minister, who had returned from Delhi last night, rushed to Delhi again this morning to discuss with the party high command and finalise the new ministers for the second expansion.
Though the 21 ministers, who took oath on August 8, retained their earlier portfolios they held in the previous B S Yeddyurappa government, the new ministers will be allotted portfolios in a day or two. Gowda reiterated in Delhi on Wednesday that the Reddy brothers were kept out of the cabinet following their indictment by the state Lokayukta (ombudsman) in the July 27 report on illegal mining scam in the state.
Meanwhile, in a related development, BJP legislator B P Harish urged the chief minister to drop housing minister V Somanna from the cabinet as he too was indicted in the mining report.