Bengaluru: Hours after he held a virtual public interaction from Vidhana Soudha marking the first year of office of the BJP Government in the State on Monday, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa began the spadework for Cabinet expansion by appointing as Chairpersons to various Boards and Corporations those who are unlikely to make it to the Cabinet.

The State Government yesterday released a list of 24 MLAs from the ruling BJP who have been appointed Chairpersons to State-run Boards and Corporations. 

However, this paved the way for heartburn among several Ministerial aspirants who began to vent their ire in public, following which the Government hurriedly withdrew four of the appointments within a couple of hours. The names of MLAs withdrawn from the list included Kapu MLA Lalaji Mendon (Karnataka Backward Classes Commission), Chitradurga MLA G.H. Thippareddy (Devaraja Urs Backward Classes Development Corporation), Gangavathi MLA Paranna Munavalli (Karnataka State Finance Corporation) and Kanakagiri MLA Basavaraj Dhadesugur (Karnataka State Social Welfare Board).

The list of appointments is as follows:

Araga Jnanendra – Karnataka Housing Board; M. Chandrappa -Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation; Narasimha Nail (Raju Gowda) – Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board; M.P. Kumaraswamy – Karnataka Marketing Consultants and Agencies Ltd. (MCA); A.S. Patil Nadahalli – Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Corporation Ltd. ; H. Halappa – Mysore Sales International Ltd.;  K. Madal Virupakshappa – Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Ltd.; K. Shivanagouda Naik – Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd.; Kalakappa Gurushantappa Bandi – Karnataka State Small Industries Development Corporation Ltd. ; Siddu Savadi – Karnataka Handloom Development Corporation Ltd.;   Preetham G. Gowda – Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd.; Rajkumar Patil Telkur – North Eastern Karnataka Road Transport Corporation, Central Office, Kalaburagi; Dattatreya Chandrashekar Patil Revoor (Appu Gowda) – Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board, Kalaburagi; Shankar Patil Munenakoppa – Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation; H. Nagesh- Karnataka State Coir Development Corporation Ltd.; S.V. Ramachandra – Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Ltd; Nehru C. Olekar – Dr. Babu Jagjivan Ram Leather Industries Development Corporation Ltd.; Duryodhan M. Aihole – Karnataka State Khadi and Village Industries Board; S. Shivaraj Patil – Karnataka State Biofuel Development Board and C.S. Niranjan Kumar – Karnataka State Forest Industries Corporation Ltd.