Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda effected the second expansion of his cabinet by inducting five more ministers.
Strong lobbying by the Reddy brothers failed to cut ice with the BJP high command on Thursday.
Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda effected the second expansion of his cabinet by inducting five more ministers.
Balachandra Laxmanrao Jarkiholi, Anand Asnotikar, Raju Gowda, CP Yogeshwar and Varthur Prakash (Ind) were administered oath of office and secrecy by governor HR Bhardwaj at Raj Bhavan, taking the strength of the cabinet to 27.
Sadananda Gowda, who held a series of meetings with BJP national leaders on Thursday morning in Delhi, succeeded in convincing the high command to go ahead with one more partial expansion of the cabinet without the Reddys and their associate B Sriramulu.
The trio has been kept out in keeping with the party’s decision not to accommodate those indicted by the Lok Ayukta report on illegal mining. Gowda dashed back to Bangalore in the evening to complete the formalities.
The Reddy brothers stayed away from the swearing-in ceremony, sending an ominous message to the Sadananada Gowda government.
All the new entrants to the ministry are also new entrants to the party, while Varthur Prakash is an independent. They have been rewarded for bailing out the previous BS Yeddyurappa government under trying circumstances.
Yogeshwar, Raju Gowda and Prakash are first-timers in the ministry. Jarkiholi and Asnotikar had served in the previous BS Yeddyurappa government.
Gowda, who was sworn in as chief minister on August 4, has still kept seven ministerial berths vacant as part of the political strategy to dangle them as baits in dealing with the rising number of aspirants.
On August 8, Gowda inducted 21 cabinet rank ministers, all of whom were in the Yeddyurappa ministry.
Jarkiholi and Asnotikar were among the 11 disqualified rebel BJP MLAs whose disqualification was quashed by the Supreme Court. The group had demanded three berths in the ministry.
Yogeshwar has been rewarded for his victory in by-election in Chennapatna in April in the JD(S) bastion, where former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy had vowed to defeat the BJP.
The three-year-long efforts of independent Varthur Prakash to enter the cabinet succeeded on Thursday, as some BJP leaders still wait.
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