Karnataka's new Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday carried out a balancing act by retaining most of the ministers from the previous dispensation in his cabinet while including some new faces from among the BJP loyalists who had been sidelined so far.
Significantly, there would be no deputy CM this time. Previously, when B S Yediyurappa was the CM, the BJP central leadership had approved three deputies.
The list of 29 ministers had the stamp of approval from Delhi, given that the CM had been camping in the national capital over the past couple of days.
Bommai's cabinet formation exercise comes a week after he took over as Karnataka CM, following the exit of Yediyurappa who served two years at the helm. The change of guard saw hectic lobbying by partymen for ministerial positions amid speculation over the fate of the group of defectors with whose help the BJP had come to power in 2019. There was speculation also about a ministerial berth for Yediyurappa's son B Y Vijayendra though he is not a legislator.
Bommai retained all nine ministerial berths held by the newcomers till last week, dropping only Shrimant Patil in favour of N Munirathna.
However, Laxman Savadi, a former deputy CM, did not make it. Also missing from the list of new ministers were senior BJP leaders Jagadish Shettar, S Suresh Kumar and Arvind Limbavali. Shettar, in fact, had said that he was not inclined to join the Bommai cabinet.
Prominent among the first time ministers is V Sunil Kumar, the party's chief whip in the assembly. Kumar, a three-time legislator, from Karkala near Udupi, had been among the party loyalists who were critical of the Yediyurappa government.
