Krishnappa will be inducted into cabinet

BENGALURU: Vijayanagar MLA M Krishnappa, a big-time land developer, will be inducted into Siddaramaiah's cabinet on Monday.
According to Congress sources, Krishnappa's induction comes in the backdrop of pressure being mounted by Vokkaliga leaders to increase representation to the community in the government.
"With two Vokkaliga ministers - MH Ambareesh and Kimmane Ratnakar - having been dropped from the cabinet during the reshuffle in June, there was hectic lobbying among Vokkaliga MLAs for these berths.Though Krishnappa was one of the frontrunners and was favoured by the chief minister during the previous cabinet expansion, his name was dropped at the last minute because of infighting among the community MLAs. Since then, the CM had kept one ministerial berth vacant," sources said. The high command has now approved Krishnappa's name.
Three months ago, the denial of a ministerial berth to Krishnappa had triggered protests in Bengaluru with his supporters disrupting the Metro rail services.
The other Vokkaliga leaders who were in the fray were CP Yogeshwar (Channapatna), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapur), ST Somashekar (Yeshwantpur) and NH Shivashankar Reddy (Gauribidanur).
Sources said Yogeshwar has been assured a ministerial berth if power minister DK Shiva Kumar agrees to take over as full-time president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee.
Unconfirmed reports said animal husbandry minister A Manju and mining minister Vinay Kulkarni will be elevated to cabinet rank.