Tuesday, December 13 2005 19:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bellary: Karnataka Chief Minister N Dharam Singh today (Dec 13, 2005) said he would expand the Congress- Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) coalition ministry headed by him in the first week of January after the Jilla and Taluk Panchayat elections this month.

Simultaneously, the chairmen of various state-owned boards and corporations would be appointed, he told reporters at Jindal air strip on his way back to Bangalore.

He asserted that the Congress would bag majority of the Jilla and Taluk Panchayat bodies.

Earlier, addressing a series of election rallies in Malapanagudi in Bellary district, he asserted that it was the Congress alone that could deliver the goods. The JDS could "not come out of Holenarsipur (the native place of JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda)", while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a divided house, he said.