Is Karnataka 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 during the last Assembly session claimed three ministers.
Though there were rumours 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 so that he can shed some of the burden involved in handling so many departments. While undertaking the expansion, Mr Gowda may try to do away with the regional imbalance. BJP strongholds like Bijapur, Bidar, Raichur, Koppal, Udupi, Chikmagalur, Shimoga, Tumkur, Bellary and Chamarajnagar do not have any representative in the Cabinet. Two districts in old Mysore — Mandya and Hassan — too do not have a BJP minister. These districts will have to be given their due when Mr Gowda gets down to the task of filling the nine slots.
In his home district, Mangalore, Mr Gowda will have a difficult task choosing the candidate with deputy Speaker Yogish Bhat and Mr Angara as 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.