Bangalore: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Tuesday inducted Jagadish Shettar, who has resigned as the Assembly Speaker, into his ministry as part of the deal to buy peace with dissidents seeking his removal.
Shettar, Bharatiya Janata Party leader from north Karnataka, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor H.R. Bhardwaj at his official residence Raj Bhavan in Bangalore.
Yeddyurappa and several cabinet ministers were present when Shettar, who quit as speaker Monday, took the oath in Kannada in the name of god. A few hundred supporters of Shettar, who moved to the BJP after being active in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), turned the swearing-in ceremony into a boisterous affair.
Shettar, 54, was propped by dissidents, led by mining magnates Tourism Minister G. Janardhana Reddy and his elder brother Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy, as an alternative to Yeddyurappa during their October-end campaign against the chief minister.
Shettar, a commerce and law graduate, willy-nilly became the rallying point of the 'oust Yeddyurappa movement' though he was not one of the rebels. He was, though, keen to be a minister when the BJP's first government took office in the state in May last year.
His return to active politics was one of the points of the peace deal brokered by the BJP's senior leader Sushma Swaraj with the Reddy brothers.
Yeddyurappa has already implemented the other points of the formula - dropping the lone woman minister Shobha Karandlage, shunting out his principal secretary V P Baligar and posting officials desired by the Reddy brothers in some districts and ministries.
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