BENGALURU: Anxiety among ministerial aspirants continues as they have to wait for some time to get clarity on cabinet expansion. Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai met BJP chief JP Nadda briefly in Delhi and explained the need to accommodate new faces in the cabinet.
However, there was no clarity on whether he got the nod from the party chief as he remained incommunicado till late Wednesday night. Bommai is scheduled to return to Bengaluru on Thursday morning, and he will tour Mysuru, where he is expected to clarify on what transpired at the meeting with Nadda.
Bommai, who went to Delhi on Tuesday afternoon, was hoping to get the green signal and take up cabinet expansion next week as he has been under pressure to fill four vacant berths. Senior BJP functionaries claimed cabinet expansion in the next three or four days looks remote. “If at all the exercise has to happen, it will happen only after the state BJP executive committee meeting at Vijayanagar around mid-April,” said a BJP MLA. Another MLA close to the CM said the expansion could happen any time next week and Bommai has already got the nod from Nadda.
Meanwhile, several MLAs and MLCs, including Ramesh Jarkiholi, R Shankar and CP Yogeshwara, met senior party functionaries to lobby for cabinet berths. BJP state vice president BY Vijayendra has been camping in Delhi since Monday.
There are four vacant berths in Bommai’s council of ministers and over a dozen MLAs and MLCs are vying for those slots.
