Congress-JD-S panel okays Karnataka cabinet expansion soon
Bengaluru, Sep 1 : Karnataka would expand cabinet in September third week and appoint heads of boards and corporations soon, said senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday.
"Congress President Rahul Gandhi has agreed to the cabinet expansion in September third week and the appointment of chairman of boards and corporations across the state," Siddaramaiah told reporters here.
The decision to expand the cabinet was taken at the meeting of the 5-member coalition coordination and monitoring committee of the alliance partners.
With Siddaramaiah as the committee's chairman, Chief Minister H.D Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara and Congress general secretary and the party's state unit in-charge K.C. Venugopal are the other members.
JD-S general secretary Danish Ali is the convenor of the panel.
"The Congress has six ministerial berths to induct while the JD-S has one post to fill in the 34-member state cabinet," said Siddaramaiah.
Kumaraswamy met Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday and urged him to allow his party's state unit to expand the cabinet as elections to the urban local bodies across the state was held on Friday.
"The committee has agreed to appoint chairpersons to 30 boards and corporations, with 20 of them from the Congress and 10 from the JD-S," said the former Congress Chief Minster.
As all the party's newly elected legislators cannot be made ministers due to the ceiling, Siddaramaiah said some of them would be made chairmen of the state-runs boards and corporations.
"Ad hoc or arbitrary" transfer of officials, including IAS and IPS officers within in the first 100 days of the post-poll alliance government also figured prominently in the 2-hour long third meeting of the panel.
"We have told the chief minister to ensure the polices and programmes of the previous Congress government be continued in this fiscal as it's a coalition partner in the state government," added Siddaramaiah.
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New Delhi (PTI): Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra has also approached the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025.
Meanwhile, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan has listed for hearing on April 16 ten other petitions, including the one filed by AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, challenging the validity of the law.
Samajwadi Party MP from Sambhal, Zia-ur-Rahman Barq, had recently also filed a plea on the issue in the apex court.
Moitra, who filed her plea on April 9, has said the controversial amendment not only suffered from serious procedural lapses but also violated several fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
“It is submitted that the violation of parliamentary practices during the law-making process has contributed to the unconstitutionality of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025,” the plea said.
“Procedurally, the Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee flouted parliamentary rules and practices both at the stage of consideration and adoption of the draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Amendment Bill and at the stage of presentation of the said report before Parliament,” it said.
The plea said that dissenting opinions from the opposition MPs were reportedly redacted without justification from the final report presented in Parliament on February 13, 2025.
Such actions undermined the deliberative process of Parliament and violated established norms as outlined in authoritative parliamentary procedure manuals, it said.
The plea said the new law allegedly infringed upon Articles 14 (equality before the law), 15(1) (non-discrimination), 19(1)(a) and (c) (freedom of speech and association), 21 (right to life and personal liberty), 25 and 26 (freedom of religion), 29 and 30 (minority rights), and Article 300A (right to property) of the Constitution.
Moitra sought striking down of the Act in its entirety, citing its procedural irregularities and substantive violations of the Constitution.
AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, AAP leader Amanatullah Khan, Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, Arshad Madani, Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema, Anjum Kadari, Taiyyab Khan Salmani, Mohammad Shafi, Mohammed Fazlurrahim and RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha have also moved the top court on the issue.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Congress MPs Imran Pratapgarhi and Mohammad Jawed are other key petitioners in the case.
