Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Thursday awarded cabinet berths to 10 rebel MLAs who aided in the collapse of the Congress-JDS government in the state last year. The oath-taking ceremony took place at the Raj Bhavan as Governor Vajubhai Vala administered the oath of office.

The rebel MLAs were disqualified by the Assembly speaker of then Congress-JDS government but subsequently won the December bypolls that took place last year to be in contention for prime cabinet positions in the Karnataka cabinet.

The ten defectors who were given ministerial positions are - ST Somashekar (Yeshwantpur constituency), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Anand Singh (Vijayanagar), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapur), Byrathi Basavaraj (KR Puram), A Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapur), BC Patil (Hirekerur), K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), KC Narayana Gowda (KR Pet) and Shrimant Balasaheb Patil (Kagwad).

The expansion takes the cabinet's strength to 28 with six vacancies yet to be filled. The last expansion took place in August with 17 ministers being inducted.

Last year, the then Assembly speaker had disqualified 17 Congress and JD(S) legislators after they revolted against the coalition government leading to its fall on July 13. Of them, 13 had contested the bypolls held for 15 assembly seats and barring AH Vishwanath (Hunsur) and MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote), all others emerged triumphant as BJP candidates.

Eleven disqualified Congress-JDS MLAs had won the December bypolls on the ruling party ticket.

After the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy government in July last year, BJP's BS Yediyurappa formed the government with the help of his party's 105 MLAs and one Independent legislator.