By Shaik Zakeer Hussain, TwoCircles.net,
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday evening allocated portfolios to 28 ministers, which includes two Muslim MLAs.
While senior Congress legislator Qamar-ul Islam will head the Municipal Administration, Public Enterprises, Minorities Welfare, and Haj & Wakf ministry, UT Khader will be in charge of the Health & Family Welfare portfolio.
Of the total 34 ministerial berths, the Chief Minister himself will be in charge of 11 key departments, including the Finance Department, Energy, Large & Medium Scale, Industries, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Cabinet Affairs, Planning and Statistics, Intelligence Wing, Bangalore City, Mines & Geology, IT, BT and Science & Technology Department and Sericulture.
Qamar-ul Islam, or Qamar Saab as he is referred as is a six-time MLA from the Gulbarga-North constituency. A powerful orator, Muslim groups in Hyderabad Karnataka region have demanded the government to appoint him as a deputy speaker of the state. He has served as the Cabinet Minister for Housing and Labour in the Veerappa Moily cabinet in the past.
U T Khader is a three-time MLA from Mangalore (Ullal) and enjoys a huge following among all religious sections.
Though there were huge expectations that, five times MLA and former Home Minister R Roshan Baig will be inducted in the ministry, the Congress party, however, decided not to include any tainted ministers in the new cabinet.
R Roshan Baig is one of the many ‘Muslim leaders’ of the state named in the two-lakh crore Wakf land scam.
