State cabinet expansion by Oct 12: Kumaraswamy

All seven vacancies in the state Cabinet will be filled by October 12, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy announced on Monday.

“All the vacancies will be filed by October 12. The process for selecting the ministerial candidates has begun,” he told reporters.

Currently, there are seven vacancies in the Cabinet headed by Kumaraswamy. Of the seven vacant berths, the Congress’ quota is six, while the JD(S) has one vacancy to fill, as per the power-sharing agreement between the two coalition partners.

The Cabinet expansion has been a contentious issue in the Congress with close to a dozen aspirants, mostly senior leaders, lobbying to get into the council of ministers.

Senior leaders such as Ramalinga Reddy, R Roshan Baig, H K Patil and M B Patil are in the race to become the ministers.

The party had earlier to planned to expand the Cabinet in the last week of September. But it was deferred due to byelections to the Karnataka Legislative Council.