Is Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda finally going to expand his much depleted cabinet?
Sources said the Chief Minister is keen on shedding some key departments of the 21 he is holding now. In a week, Mr Gowda will be visiting Delhi for a meeting with the party top brass before he takes a final call on the list of new ministers.
At present, there are nine vacancies in the cabinet. Mr Gowda had kept five berths vacant after his first cabinet expansion which was undertaken seven months ago while one vacancy was created by the death of Dr V.S. Acharya. Three more berths fell vacant after the ‘porn storm’ controversy.
Though there were rumors that the party high command was planning to take up the leadership issue after the budget, sources said they may not touch the controversial issue now. Instead, Mr Gowda had been asked to prepare for a Cabinet revamp. While undertaking the expansion, Mr Gowda may try to do away with the regional imbalance.
In his home district, Mangalore, Mr Gowda will have a difficult task choosing the candidate with Deputy speaker, Yogish Bhat and Mr Angara the frontrunners. In Udupi, Raghupathi Bhat and Mr Haladi Srinivas Shetty are in the race while in Chikmagalur, both D.N. Jeevaraj and C.T. Ravi are ministerial aspirants. From Shimoga, Belur Gopalakrishna, a BSY loyalist is hoping to get into the ministry.
There are also MLCs who want to become ministers. They include Legislative Council deputy chairperson Ms Vimala Gowda, former minister Vijay Shankar and Ms Bharathi Shetty.
With Mr Sadananda Gowda acutely aware of the fact that there will be pressure from the BSY camp to induct more of his followers, the CM is keeping his cards close to his chest, the sources added.