Bengaluru: After two months of hectic lobbying, multiple trips to Delhi and endless factionalism, the Congress high command Monday managed to muster an uneasy consensus among warring factions and cleared 20 new names for the state cabinet.
However, only 19 took oath as Gayatri Shanthegowda, the lone woman in the list was asked not to take oath.
Shanthegowda’s inclusion came as a shock to most people because she had not even taken oath as an MLA, triggering protests by other MLAs, especially supporters of former minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar. Shivakumar’s cabinet currently has 33 ministers with not even a single woman in the council of ministers.
People aware of the developments say the list of new ministers, who took oath Monday evening, was chosen based on representation of caste and region, and to accommodate loyalists of at least three main factions within the Congress in Karnataka, including those of Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar, Siddaramaiah and AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.
“While we have many capable legislators who are eligible for ministerial positions, the party must make specific decisions under certain circumstances. In 2004, I was not appointed as a minister, nor was I initially included in the cabinet during the Siddaramaiah government (2013-18). It was my patience during those times that brought me to the position I hold today. I request everyone to remain patient, as opportunities will be provided to all in due course,” Shivakumar told reporters Monday.
The new cabinet has loyalists of the three main factions while at least a dozen ministers who served in the previous Siddaramaiah government, were replaced.
In the 33-member cabinet, seven are from the dominant Lingayat community and six are Vokkaligas, including Shivakumar and Ramalinga Reddy (Reddys are classified under the same category).
There are six people from the backward classes, including three members from Siddaramaiah’s community, the Kurubas.
There are seven members from communities classified as Scheduled Caste and three from Scheduled Tribes. There are three Muslims, including Zameer Ahmed Khan, and one Christian (K. J. George) in the cabinet. One post remains vacant in the 34-member cabinet.
“Overall, 23 out of 38 key positions, over 60 percent, are held by leaders from SC, ST, OBC and minority communities,” according to the CMO.
This 23 includes Lingayats and Vokkaligas, who enjoy dominant positions but are listed in the state OBC list.
Under Rahul Gandhi, the Congress has been advocating for social justice with a higher share for marginalised and oppressed groups.
However, in caste-heavy Karnataka, the Congress has fallen back on a tried-and-tested strategy of accommodating dominant communities despite relying on marginalised groups for electoral support.
The completion of the cabinet expansion exercise, however, added more confusion than clarity to Shivakumar’s two-month-old government, compounding the challenges for the chief minister.
Caste, region, winnability
The intense lobbying to accommodate loyalists led to a two-month delay in completing the cabinet expansion exercise.
The Congress high command dropped over a dozen ministers from Siddaramaiah’s cabinet, including seniors like H. K. Patil, K. Venkatesh, H. C. Mahadevappa, Dinesh Gundu Rao and Lakshmi Hebbalkar among others.
This included two last-minute changes in the official list shared by the CMO—replacement of Mankal Vaidya with S. S. Mallikarjun, terming it a “typing error”—and Shanthegowda’s omission from the swearing-in.
The Congress has also overlooked several alleged transgressions by leaders who were under scrutiny for working against the party’s interests. Notably, that of B. Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan, the former minister from Bengaluru, who was under scrutiny for allegedly working against the Congress candidate in Davangere South in May.
Khan is a prominent Muslim leader and his inclusion was a matter of intense debate, with the party choosing to help retain its core support base over alleged anti-party activities.
There are seven ministers from the SC category, including three from SC (Right) which the AICC president belongs to, two from SC (Left), and one each from Lambani (Banjara) and Bhovi communities. There are three ministers from ST groups.
The CMO said there are six ministers from Backward Classes, with deputies in both the legislative assembly and council belonging to these groups, irrespective of any allegations against some of these legislators.
B. Nagendra, a close aide of Siddaramaiah and main accused in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited scandal, was inducted into the cabinet as he is from the dominant Valmiki community which enjoys significant sway in the Kalyana-Karnataka region.
Nagendra was forced to step down from the Siddaramaiah-led cabinet in June 2024 and even spent time in jail over allegations of financial misappropriation, giving the opposition more ammunition to corner the ruling party.
“The disgraced former minister B. Nagendra, who stole Rs 187 crore of the poor Scheduled Tribes’ money from the Valmiki Development Corporation and gave ‘black money’ to the Congress high command for the Telangana and Lok Sabha elections, has been welcomed back into the cabinet with a red carpet,” R. Ashoka, the leader of the Opposition, said in a post.
ಪರಿಶಿಷ್ಟರ ಹಣ ಲೂಟಿ ಮಾಡಿದ ಕಳಂಕಿತನಿಗೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ಮಂತ್ರಿಗಿರಿ ಬಹುಮಾನ! ಬ್ರಷ್ಟ ಕಾಂಗ್ರೆಸ್ ಸರ್ಕಾರಕ್ಕೆ ನಾಚಿಕೆಯಾಗಬೇಕು!
ವಾಲ್ಮೀಕಿ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿ ನಿಗಮದ ₹187 ಕೋಟಿ ಬಡ ಪರಿಶಿಷ್ಟ ಪಂಗಡದ ಜನರ ಹಣವನ್ನು ಕದ್ದು, ತೆಲಂಗಾಣ ಮತ್ತು ಲೋಕಸಭಾ ಚುನಾವಣೆಗಾಗಿ ಕಾಂಗ್ರೆಸ್ ಹೈಕಮಾಂಡ್ಗೆ 'ಕಪ್ಪ ಕಾಣಿಕೆ' ನೀಡಿದ್ದ ಕಳಂಕಿತ ಮಾಜಿ ಸಚಿವ ಬಿ.… pic.twitter.com/iMX9z8OZZV
— R. Ashoka (@RAshokaBJP) August 3, 2026
There are two Kurubas in the cabinet now and four others from communities that are classified as backward classes in Karnataka. This includes Santosh Lad, who belongs to the Maratha community and Ajay Singh (son of former CM Dharam Singh) who is a Rajput.
“There were lists by Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar, Kharge and the high command. We were earlier told that my name was in but it was later changed,” said one Congress MLA, earlier in the day.
Among the Lingayat ministers is Lakshman Savadi who was rewarded by being made deputy CM under B. S. Yediyurappa (2019-2021) for his role in destabilising the H. D. Kumaraswamy-led Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress coalition government by engineering defections.
‘Caste, not work’
Tabu Rao, the wife of six-time MLA, former KPCC president and former minister Dinesh Gundu Rao, said she was just as “surprised” as anyone else over her husband’s omission from the cabinet.
“One of the few who adhered to doing party work! Why, then, was he dropped? My short answer is: I am as surprised as you. At a whim people are sacrificed! Finally it comes down to caste and not work!!! Pity!!” she wrote on social media.
The existing list has no representation from the Brahmin caste.
Several other Congress MLAs have also threatened to resign over being overlooked.
Supporters of six-time MLA and former minister Tanveer Sait called this a “betrayal”, overlooking hardworking legislators to accommodate those who worked against the party and “outsiders”, tacitly referring to Khan and Savadi respectively.
One supporter of Sait was rushed to hospital after consuming poison over the ‘betrayal’.
One senior Congress MLA, Yashwanthrayagouda Patil, has tendered his resignation over being left out of the cabinet, forcing the possibility of more changes to calm the outpouring of dissent.
The developments add to Shivakumar’s challenges, as he is under immense pressure over drought, floods, the release of Cauvery water, crumbling infrastructure in Bengaluru and a fund crunch, with barely two years left for the next elections.
With imminent elections like the Bengaluru city corporation, Zilla and Taluka Panchayat, Shivakumar must assuage rising tempers and manage people’s expectations while operating under the shadow of Siddaramaiah and Kharge.
“We have over 140 MLAs, we have MLAs in every district and community, we have many capable leaders, we have depth in leadership, so quite naturally it is going to be difficult to pick only 30 out of the 140 legislators we have,” Priyank Kharge, Karnataka’s minister for home affairs and the son of AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, told reporters Monday.
During Siddaramaiah’s term (2023-2026), there were as many as 150 cabinet ranks doled out to placate disgruntled legislators for missing out on ministerial berths. Shivakumar, it appears, will have to fall back on a similar strategy.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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