BENGALURU: With elections for 108 Urban Local bodies around the corner, the JD(S)-Congress coalition government is all set to appoint district in-charge ministers. While the Cabinet's strength is at 27 as against the sanctioned cap of 34, some Cabinet ministers are expected to be given additional charge of more than one district. While ministers are expected to be made in charges of home districts, districts that have no representation in the Cabinet like Kodagu, Ballari, Gadag, and Yadgir are expected to be placed in additional charge.
Rearrangement of districts will take place after the Cabinet expansion.
While a draft list is said to be ready, the final list of district in-charge ministers needs to be sanctioned by the coordination committee. The announcement of district in-charge ministers, especially for north Karnataka, is expected to rake up more dissent with senior legislators who are aspiring to be ministers being left out.
According to sources, the draft list assigns districts of Ramanagara and Ballari to D K Shivakumar, Kolar and Gadag to Krishna Byre Gowda, Belagavi and Dharwad to Ramesh Jarkiholi and Kalaburagi and Yadgir to Priyank Kharge. All other ministers are expected to be in charges of just one district.
G T Devegowda is expected to be made the in-charge of Mysuru, while Shivashankar Reddy for Chikkaballapur, C S Puttaraju of JD(S), who holds the minor irrigation portfolio, is likely to be made the minister in-charge of Mandya, while Thammanna is likely to get Shivamogga and Hassan for H D Revanna.
BSP's N Mahesh is likely to be placed in charge of Davangere, Tumakuru for Srinivas, Chamarajanagar for Puttaranga Shetty, Dakshina Kannada for U T Khader- the only Congress legislator from the district, Udupi for MLC- turned minister Dr Jayamala is on the cards. K J George is expected to return as Kodagu in-charge minister, while Sa Ra Mahesh of JD(S) will be placed in charge of Chikkamagaluru. Zameer Ahmed Khan is likely to get Bengaluru Rural, while G Parameshwara is already Bengaluru Urban minister.
Venkataramanappa is expected to be placed in-charge of Chitradurga, R Shankar for Haveri, R V Deshpande for Uttara Kannada, Bandeppa Kashempur for Koppal, Venkatarao Nadagoudar for Raichur, M N Managuli for Bagalkot, Shivanand Patil for Vijayanagar and Rajashekhar Patil for Bidar are expected to be made in-charges.