New Delhi: 24 additional ministers are scheduled to take oath on Saturday morning, according to reports, after two days of hectic negotiations by the Congress resulted in the names of new members of the Karnataka cabinet headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
They claimed that after hours of negotiations between Siddaramaih and his deputy D K Shivakumar and high central figures including AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala, the decision was finally made.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi gave their final nod to the list which balances caste and regional equations in the southern state.
As many as eight ministers along with the chief minister and his deputy have already taken oath in Karnataka on May 20.
The Karnataka cabinet can have a total of 34 ministers including the chief minister. The sources said the expanded cabinet will have four new ministers belonging to the Lingayat community and an equal number from the Vokkaliga community, besides two each from among scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, one from the Muslim community, a Brahmin and a woman.
According to the sources, the list of probable ministers who are likely to take oath on Saturday includes Dinesh Gundu Rao, Krishna Byre Gowda, Eshwar Khandre, Raheem Khan, Santosh Lad, K N Rajanna, Peeriyapattana Venkatesh, H C Mahadevappa, Byrathi Suresh, C Puttarangashetty, Shivaraj Tangadi, R B Timmpur and B Nagendra, all of whom are considered close to Siddaramaiah.
The sources added that Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Madhu Bangarappa, D Sudhakar, Cheluvaraya Swami, Mankul Vaidya and M C Sudhakar are also among the list of ministers included in the expanded cabinet, all of whom are considered close to Shivakumar.
They added that the list of new ministers will also include H K Patil, Sharanprakash Patil, Shivanana Patil, and SS Mallikarjuna, besides Sharanbasappa Darshanapura, approved by the party's high command.
Besides, the name of N S Boseraju, who is the lone MLC, has also been approved in the list of new ministers to be included in the state cabinet.
Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have been in the national capital for the last three days and they have held several rounds of discussions.
The final list was approved after discussions with Kharge and Rahul Gandhi.
Earlier, the two Karnataka leaders also met Sonia Gandhi, for the first time after government formation in the state.
Differences between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar had emerged over names of probable ministers but these were sorted out during the discussions, the sources said.
Meanwhile, all the leaders left for Bengaluru for the oath-taking ceremony of the new ministers. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren also left with Shivakumar and Surjewala for Saturday's event.
With PTI inputs