Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday said that the expansion of his cabinet will happen this afternoon. According to sources, Bommai’s cabinet will have eight candidates from the Lingayat community, seven each from Vokkaliga and OBC, including one woman, three schedule caste, one scheduled tribe and two others.
At 2:15 pm today, Karnataka’s new Cabinet will take oath at Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru, CM Bommai informed. He said that everything related to the new cabinet expansion has been discussed with the party high command in Delhi in the last two days and the list of ministers who will be inducted today in the cabinet will be received by them shortly.
Speaking to reporters at the Bengaluru airport, he said “the new Cabinet Ministers will be sworn in at 2:15 pm”.
Basavaraj Bommai took oath as the 23rd chief minister of Karnataka on July 28, following the resignation of BS Yediyurappa.
After taking oath as the Chief Minister, Bommai visited Delhi twice. On Monday, he went to the national capital to discuss state cabinet expansion with BJP National President JP Nadda.
Earlier on July 30, he had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During his two-day visit to Delhi, he also met several Union Ministers including Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and others.
During the last couple of days, continuous discussion were on between Mr Bommai and central leaders in Delhi to finalise the cabinet expansion.
Meanwhile, ministerial candidates had also continued influencing to secure a berth in the new cabinet.
Expanding the cabinet is seen as the first big challenge before the state’s new CM, as he should navigate through the ministry formation exercise by maintaining balance between factions within the BJP.
There are many candidates among the party “old guards” and “youngsters”, also there are leaders who had joined BJP after quitting Congress-JD(S) coalition in 2019.