Bengaluru, 3 August

In the first expansion of the two-month old Karnataka Cabinet led by Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, 19 MLAs were sworn-in as ministers on Monday even as a Congress legislator resigned from his post over his exclusion from the ministry.

Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot administered the oath of office and secrecy to new Ministers in a ceremony held at the Lok Bhavan premises here.

The Congress legislators, who were sworn-in as ministers, are P M Narendraswamy (Malavalli), Shivaraj Tangadagi (Kanakagiri), Rudrappa Lamani (Haveri), K S Basavanthappa (Mayakonda), B Nagendra (Ballari rural), T Raghumurthy (Challakere), B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan (Chamarajpet), Rizwan Arshad (Shivajinagar), Santosh Lad (Kalaghatagi), Madhu Bangarappa (Soraba), Putturangashetty (Chamarajanagara), and S S Mallikarjun (Davangere North).

Ajay Singh (Jevargi), N Chaluvaraya Swamy (Nagamangala), K M Shivalinge Gowda (Arasikere), H C Balakrishna (Magadi), Basvaraj Rayareddi (Yelaburga), Vijayanand Kashappanavar (Bagalakote), and Laxman Savadi (Athani) also took oath.

Earlier in the day, AICC general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal sent a communication to Shivakumar regarding the Congress high command's approval of 20 names to be inducted into the Cabinet.

However, Gayathri Shanthegowda, whose name was on the final list cleared by the Congress high command, was not sworn in on Monday, leaving the Karnataka cabinet without a woman minister.

An earlier list included Bhatkal MLA Mankala Vaidya, who was a minister in the Siddaramaiah cabinet, but he was subsequently replaced by S S Mallikarjun, also a former Minister.

No official reason has been cited for replacing Vaidya.

Shivakumar was sworn-in as the CM along with 13 ministers on June 3, following Siddaramaiah's resignation as CM on May 28.

The sanctioned strength of Karnataka's ministry is 34, including the CM.

Six of these 20 new ministers to be inducted were part of the previous government led by Siddaramaiah.

Interestingly, several senior legislators who were part of Siddaramaiah's Cabinet, including H C Mahadevappa, H K Patil, Dinesh Gundu Rao, K Venkatesh, M C Sudhakar, Laxmi Hebbalkar have been left out.

Three former CMs children are now part of Shivakumar's Cabinet. They are Yathindra Siddaramaiah (already a minister), Kumar Bangarappa (S Bangarappa) and Ajay Singh (N Dharam Singh).