Bengaluru : After the resounding victory in four states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to prepare the ground in Karnataka as the Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in 2023.
Karnataka BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel has said a cabinet expansion would be taken up soon by the party.
BJP National General Secretary C.T. Ravi has said the party is ready to give a tonic to overcome its drawbacks in Karnataka ahead of the 2023 state elections.
The leaders, who have been demanding their inclusion in the cabinet are now preparing to board flights to New Delhi for consultation with their political mentors there.
At present, four cabinet berths are vacant in the Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai-led government.
Senior BJP leaders have openly demanded a cabinet expansion and some of them have asked the party to drop other veteran leaders from the cabinet to give them a chance.
Former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa expects a prominent cabinet berth for his son B.Y. Vijayendra.
The BJP’s central leadership was completely focused on the just concluded elections in the five states.
The cabinet expansion is most likely to happen after the Ugadi festival in the first week of April.
According to BJP sources, the party’s central leadership is keen on reorganising the party as well as the government in Karnataka.
BJP MLA Poornima Srinivas and former Karnataka Minister M.P. Renukacharya on Friday said they are ready to take responsibility if the party chooses them.
Another senior BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal criticised the state government for the complacent attitude of its ministers in the ongoing Assembly session.
The aspirants for the cabinet berths have demanded that those who have been continuously getting plum cabinet portfolios during the BJP-led Karnataka governments in 2006, 2008 and 2019 must be dropped.
Sources say that the party’s central leadership is considering the “Gujarat state” model of complete reshuffle of the cabinet.
–IANS