After facing flak over one-man cabinet administration, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will expand his ministry on Tuesday by inducting 17 ministers in the first phase.

This will be the first-ever expansion of Yeddyurappa's ministry after he assumed office on July 26 and proved his government's majority on the floor of the Assembly on July 29.

Having run the government with a "one-man cabinet" for over 20 days, the chief minister had on Saturday managed to get the nod from BJP national president Amit Shah to undertake the exercise on August 20.

Among those to be administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Vajubhai Vala at the Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru at 10:30 am are Govind Karajol, Ashwath Narayan C N, Laxman Savadi, K S Eshwarappa, R Ashoka, Jagadish Shettar, B Sreeramulu and S Suresh Kumar.

V Somanna, C T Ravi, Basavaraj Bommai, Kota Shrinivas Poojari, J C Madhu Seamy, C C Patil, H Nagesh, Prabhu Chauhan and Shashikala Jolle Annasaheb are the other names on the list.

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The chief minister has sent an official list of 17 ministers to be inducted into the cabinet to the governor, requesting him to administer the oath to them.

With no clarity on who all were to be inducted into the ministry till Monday night, aspirants and the state BJP leadership were anxiously awaiting clear instructions from the party high command in Delhi.

Amid pressure from within, the opposition Congress and the JD(S) too had hit out at the BJP over the delay in cabinet expansion and had even raised questions about government's "existence".

The Congress had claimed that Yeddyurappa's one-man cabinet administration "resembled the President's rule".

Yeddyurappa-led BJP returned to power in the southern state after the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government in Karnataka headed by H D Kumaraswamy collapsed on July 23 after a 14-month long turbulent tenure.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government has ordered a CBI inquiry into alleged phone-tapping of politicians, officials and senior IPS officers over the last year, a government official said on Monday.

On the directive of Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, state Home Department Deputy Secretary B.S. Srinivasa has directed the premier investigation agency to investigate the alleged illegal and unauthorised telephone interception in the last one year (since August 1, 2018) till August 19, 2019 of several ruling and opposition political leaders, their relatives and government officials.

"The order was issued following reports in a section of the media that the previous Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had asked the state intelligence wing to tap phones of BJP leaders, rebel legislators of the former coalition allies and some IPS officers to find out if attempts were made to destabilise the JD-S-Congress coalition government," the official told IANS.

-with inputs from agencies