Congress MLA Rudrappa Lamani's supporters protest outside Bengaluru party office after being excluded from Karnataka Cabinet

A week after assuming power, the Congress government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah carried out the cabinet expansion by inducting 24 legislators who were sworn in as ministers on Saturday.

Among these ministers are 23 MLAs and the unexpected choice for the Congress high command is NS Boseraju, who is neither an MLA nor an MLC.

However, Congress MLA Rudrappa Lamani was excluded from the list of inducted ministers. Anguished by the decision, supporters of the Banjara community leader gathered outside the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office in Bengaluru in protest, demanding that the leader be appointed as a minister. Turncoats Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi are among the other leaders who have not been selected.

"Our banjara community leader Rudrappa Lamani's name was on the list till last night, but today we saw that his name was not there. If our leader does not get the Ministerial post, we will protest against this because we gave our 75 per cent vote to Congress in the election, so there should be at least one leader from our community," said one of the supporters.

Rudrappa Manappa Lamani was elected to the Karnataka Assembly from the Haveri constituency in 2023.

Supporters of Congress MLA D Sudhakar protested outside Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's residence here earlier, demanding a ministerial position for him. He was later appointed to a ministerial position, though.

The list of MLAs who took oath on Saturday includes Dinesh Gundu Rao, Krishna Byre Gowda, Eshwar Khandre, Raheem Khan, Santosh Lad, KN Rajanna, K Ventakesh, HC Mahadevappa, Byrathi Suresh, Shivaraj Tangadi, RB Timmpur, B Nagendra, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Madhu Bangarappa, D Sudhakar, Cheluvaraya Swami, Mankul Vaidya, and MC Sudhakar.

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