This story is from June 20, 2016

Ahead of 2018 polls, CM Siddaramaiah increases Lingayat quota in Cabinet

Ahead of 2018 polls, CM Siddaramaiah increases Lingayat quota in Cabinet
BENGALURU: Chief minister Siddaramaiah has increased the quota for the Lingayats representation in the cabinet keeping in mind that BJP has the community’s strongman B S Yeddyurappa at the helm..
Maintaining the AHINDA( Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and dalits) agenda by having 21 minister from these communities, Siddaramaiah has shuffled around with the ministerial berths for the dominant castes of Vokkaligas, Lingayats and the Brahmins.

While the previous cabinet had a majority number of Vokkaliga ministers, with as many as seven from the community, the new cabinet sees an increase in the Lingayat ministers. Siddaramaiahdropped two Vokkaliga ministers M H Ambareesh and Kimmane Ratnakar.
The increase of Lingayat ministers has been by way of including Basavaraj Rayaraddi, Eshwar Khandre and S S Mallikarjun to compensate the exit of Shamanur Shivashankarappa and S R Patil. The total number of Lingayat ministers has now increased to eight.
Of the 14 Vokkaliga MLAs in the party, five are in the cabinet. The community will be compensated with the likelihood of a Vokkaliga heading the party president. Among the seven MLAs hailing from the Reddy community, the representation in the cabinet is two---Ramalinga Reddy and H K Patil.
For the Brahmin community, it may be considered as a bonus with the Monday appointment of Dinesh Gundu Rao as the working president of the KPCC after his exit from the council of ministers. Dinesh has been replaced by K R Ramesh Kumar in the council of ministers to represent the Brahmin community along with R V Deshpande.

Meanwhile, the AHINDA communities have got an increase in their representation with an additional minister from the Kuruba community in H Y Meti.
Siddaramaiah for the last three years had maintained that his representation of the Kuruba community as the CM was more than sufficient and resisted the inclusion of another minister from the community. But eyeing the 2018 polls, and consolidating the Kuruba votes, senior MLA H Y Meti has been inducted into the cabinet.
Meanwhile, representation from all the 30 districts has still not happened, with as many as six to seven districts having no minister in the council of ministers. These districts include Yadgir, Ballari, Mandya, Chikkaballapura, Kodagu, Bangalore Rural and Raichur. Mysuru and Bengaluru retain the maximum number of ministers in the cabinet with four each from the districts.
Current Cabinet members:
1) Chief Minister Siddaramaiah: Kuruba
2) R V Deshpande: Brahmin
3) Ramalinga Reddy: Reddy
4) T B Jayachandra: Vokkaliga
5) B Ramanath Rai: OBC (Bunt)
6) H K Patil: Reddy
7) SS Mallikarjun: Lingayat
8) Priyank Kharge: Dalit
9) H C Mahadevappa: Dalit
10) Pramod Madhwaraj : OBC (Mogaveera)
11) Kagodu Thimappa: OBC (Idiga)
12) U T Khader: Muslim
13) Ramesh Jarkiholi: ST (Valmiki)
14) H Anjaneya: Dalit
15) M B Patil: Lingayat
16) K R Ramesh Kumar: Brahmin
17) Sharan Prakash Patil: Lingayat
18) Santosh Lad: Kshatriya Maratha
19) Rudrappa Lamani: ST (Lambani)
20) H Y Meti: Kuruba
21) Basavraj Rayaraddi: Reddy-Lingayat
22) M R Seetharam (MLC): OBC (Balija)
23) Tanveer Sait: Muslim
24) Eshwar Khandre: Lingayat
25) D K Shivakumar: Vokkaliga
26) Krishna Byregowda: Vokkaliga
27) A Manju: Vokkaliga
28) Roshan Baig: Muslim
29) Umashree: OBC (Devanga)
30) G Parameshwara: Dalit
31) K J George: Christian
32) H S Mahadev Prasad: Lingayat
33) Vinay Kulkarni: Lingayat
author
About the Author
Sandeep Moudgal

Journalist by profession, 15 years in the field with Politics and Policy as forte. He is an Assistant Editor with Bengaluru bureau and Karnataka as his jurisdiction. Has a Masters degree in Ancient History and Archaeology from Mysore University along with a PGDJ from the Asian College of Journalism.

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