CM may induct 13 into his team on Monday

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa is likely to expand his Cabinet on Monday by inducting 13 new ministers.

Of the 13 new faces, 10 are disqualified JD(S)-Congress MLAs, who got re-elected in the bypolls on BJP tickets and three are loyal BJP legislators. However, there is no proposal to drop existing ministers or create new deputy chief minister posts. There are already three deputy CMs in the team, sources in BJP told DH.

The party’s top leaders also told the chief minister not to induct any legislators who lost in the recent Assembly bypolls. The plans were finalised after the CM, who held a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda here.

Yediyurappa later told reporters that the party has given him the green signal to expand the Cabinet and also made suggestions on whom to induct.

“Many of our suggestions have been accepted by Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda. If there are differences, we will discuss it in Bengaluru and finalise it,” Yediyurappa said here.

However, he refused to disclose the names of legislators to be inducted.

Sources said that though the party top brass was in favour for inducting only nine of the 11 re-elected rebel leaders, Yediyurappa was able to convince them about the need to induct 10 legislators.

The chief minister also told the party leaders that he would not induct one MLA, who came from the Congress, as the MLA himself agreed not to be a claimant for the ministerial berth.

The party top brass also left it to the CM’s discretion to select three suitable loyal BJP legislators.

Currently, there are 18 ministers, including the chief minister, in the Cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are vacant.

The party top brass suggested to Yediyurappa to keep three berths vacant, two of which will be given to Rajarajeshwari Nagar ex-MLA Munirathna Naidu and Maski ex-MLA Pratap Gouda Patil. Though they resigned as Congress legislators and joined the BJP, their Assembly bypoll decision has been kept in abeyance due to pending election petitions in the Karnataka High Court.