The oath-taking ceremony will be held with minimal fanfare at the state Lok Bhavan with a crowd of around 2,000 in attendance.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi will be present at the ceremony along with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

The probable list of 10 ministers who can take oath with Shivakumar includes several seniors from the Siddaramaiah Cabinet and two young faces — Priyank Kharge, the son of Mallikarjun Kharge, and Krishna Byregowda.

The Congress is also expected to choose between veteran K H Muniyappa and his daughter Roopakala Shashidhar, who is a fresh ministerial aspirant, and Yathindra Siddaramaiah as its youth choices, sources in the state government said. The choice of senior ministers is expected to include M B Patil, Eshwar Khandre — both from the dominant Lingayat community — G Parameshwara, a Dalit, Ramalinga Reddy, a Vokkaliga, Satish Jarkiholi from an ST community and K J George, a Christian. The Muslim choice for the Cabinet is likely to be the incumbent Speaker and former minister U T Khader.

The Cabinet formation in the first round will be an exercise in balancing the Congress’s caste equations in Karnataka, sources said.

The OBC face to replace Siddaramaiah is likely to be his son Yathindra; the Dalit face is likely to be Priyank Kharge.

Among the ministers from the Siddaramaiah government who could face setbacks are Shivaraj Tangadagi, Mankal Vaidya, Byrathi Suresh and Zameer Ahmed Khan among others.

The new Karnataka Cabinet formation exercise could also see the appointment of deputy chief ministers and a new president for the state Congress to replace incumbent Shivakumar.