Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Sunday said the cabinet expansion would take place on February 6, with 13 MLAs taking oath of office.
“The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30am,” he told reporters here.
Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined BJP from parties, including Congress and the JD(S), will take oath, he said.
The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5, 2019, bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly.
Yediyurappa has been under immense pressure by former MLAs of the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) who had crossed over to the BJP to make him chief minister last July to expand his Cabinet.
Of the 17 defectors, only 13 were fielded in the December bypolls. And 11 of them won, making his job difficult. Two seats are still vacant because of election petitions pending before courts.
According to these MLAs, Yediyurappa had promised to make all of them ministers, with the post of deputy chief minister going to their leader Ramesh Jharkiholi.
But the party high command had been dragging its feet, not allowing Yediyurappa to induct these new entrants at the cost of party loyalists.
In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, only 34 can become ministers, including the chief minister. The BSY government currently has just 18 ministers, with many holding more than one bigger portfolio.
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