BENGALURU: After adding two more seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally in Karnataka with the bypoll victories, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is all set to take on the next challenge — silencing baiters within the party. The Chief Minister is looking to use cabinet expansion and appointments to boards and corporations as means to quell any disgruntlement within the party over funds allocation, clamour for ministerial berths and disenchantment among cadres over neglect.
But having made promises to induct former rebel MLAs of the JDS-Congress coalition, who joined the BJP and helped the party come to power, the task seems more challenging.Currently, there are seven vacant berths in the 34-member cabinet which is Bengaluru- and Belagavi-heavy while there is no representation from more than a dozen districts. Of the 27 incumbent ministers, 11 are those who swittched to the BJP. Four others — MTB Nagaraj, Muniratna, R Shankar and H Vishwanath — are awaiting induction.
Apart from them, a host of BJP old-timers like CP Yogeshwar, Sunil Kumar, S A Ramadas, Appachchu Ranjan, Umesh Katti, Murugesh Nirani, Arvind Limbavali, S Angara, etc are lobbying hard for ministerial berths. If all four newcomers to the party are inducted, they will make up more than 44% of the cabinet. Maintaining the delicate balance will be the CM’s main challenge during the next cabinet expansion.
With the party eyeing the Maski and Basavakalyan seats too in the next round of bypolls, Yediyurappa will be keen on delivering similar results, but will have to get on to making amends within first. Barely 24 hours after bypoll results, ministerial berth aspirants visited Yediyurappa on Wednesday.
“I have already submitted my application to be a minister, but it is now left to the CM to decide. He has assured us that a few ministers will be dropped and new faces will be accommodated,” said Shorapur MLA Raju Gowda Naik. He, along with other MLAs Renukacharya, Murugesh Nirani, Shivaraj Patil and Belli Prakash, went straight to Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi’s residence from the CM’s residence.
Jarkiholi, who has hosted umpteen number of such luncheons and dinners, returned after a three-day trip to New Delhi only on Tuesday night. Sources in the BJP suggest that Yediyurappa is all for a cabinet reshuffle to accommodate more new faces, but the Central leadership prefers only an expansion to fill the seven vacant berths. Yediyurappa meanwhile, hopes to win over miffed MLAs while appeasing cadres with appointments to boards and corporations. So far, only MLAs have been appointed to boards and corporations, much to the disappointment of party workers.
With State BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel’s suggestions, Yediyurappa is likely to appoint cadres to boards, authorities and corporations. Even after inducting new faces, the CM is keen on keeping at least one cabinet berth vacant keeping in mind the Maski and Basavakalyan bypoll.
Befitting reply to Congress, says CT Ravi
Bengaluru: A day after the results of the bypolls were declared, BJP national secretary C T Ravi expressed confidence that the saffron party would do well in states going to polls next year. “We will have significant victories in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and Assam,” Ravi said. The former minister’s comments come after the NDA coming to power in Bihar.