Karnataka news: 18 more ministers likely to take oath on May 20 apart from Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar

Besides the new Karnataka Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, there will be 18 ministers who are likely to be sworn in at the ceremony on May 20, including senior party leaders G. Parameshwara, MB Patil, and others.

The Congress on Thursday announced veteran party leader Siddaramaiah as the next Chief Minister while state unit chief DK Shivakumar was announced to be the only Deputy Chief Minister, with the swearing-in ceremony planned on May 20 afternoon in Bengaluru.

According to party sources, there will be a total of 28 ministers in the state cabinet with 14 each from both the camps of Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.

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According to a party source, former Deputy Chief Minister Parmeshwara, Krishna Byre Gowda, Satish Jarkiholi, Laxman Savadi, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Saleem Ahmed, UT Khader, Santosh Lad, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Zameer Ahmed, MP Patil, HK Patil, Ramalinga Reddy, KJ George, Eshwar Khandre, Tanveer Seth, Dr HC Mahadevappa and BK Hariprasad are among the probable ministers.

The party, after several rounds of meetings in the last three days, ended the suspense over the next Karnataka Chief Minister as both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were eyeing the top post. The deadlock on the issue led to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to intervene to resolve the issue.

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The two leaders were camping in the national capital and presenting their case with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, General Secretary KC Venugopal, and Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala.

However, after the intervention by Sonia Gandhi, both the leaders, who till Wednesday met the senior leaders separately, met at the residence of Venugopal over breakfast and drove to Kharge's residence in the same car giving the message of unity.

The Congress had registered a thumping victory in May 10 polls, where the party won 135 out of 224 seats whereas the ruling BJP was reduced to 66 seats.