With a number of coalition partners angling for suitable ministerial berths in the federal ministry, Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda is in for a tough time when he returns from attending the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland.

United Front leaders have been informed that the prime minister will expand his ministry by February 10.

Deve Gowda is expected to induct at least new six ministers, and UF partners -- the prime minister's Janata Dal, Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, Home Minister Inderjit Gupta's Communist Party of India, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah's National Conference and Ajit Singh's Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party -- have begun vigorously promoting their candidates for ministerial office.

The Janata Dal wants at least one more MP to be inducted in the ministry. And the leadership's choice is the thakur leader from Bihar, Virendra Kumar Singh. However, Mulayam Singh does not want Singh to be made a minister. Instead, he has put forth the name of his aide, Rajya Sabha MP Azam Khan. Yadav insists that Khan be given a Cabinet post.

The CPI which has two Cabinet ministers -- Agriculture Minister Chaturanan Mishra is the other -- has told the prime minister that it wants party veteran Geeta Mukherjee to be given priority over other aspirants for ministerial berths.

The Communist Party of India- Marxist, which supports the UF government from outside, wants Xavier Arakkal, an Independent MP from Kerala, to be inducted into the ministry. The CPI-M believes it is about time that a Keralite is made a minister -- Kerala is the only south Indian state without representation in the Deve Gowda government.

Chandrababu Naidu has demanded that his party -- the TDP -- should get one more Cabinet post. The TDP has only one Cabinet minister, Yerran Naidu, who heads the rural areas and employment ministry.

Sources said the AP chief minister is peeved that the TDP ministers have been given 'light' portfolios by Deve Gowda. Naidu, whose relations with the prime minister has deteriorated after the Alamatti dam controversy, wants his ministers to be given important portfolios like civil aviation and industry.

Deve Gowda may also consider allocating a ministerial post each to the National Conference and the BKKP, parties which entered the coalition much later. NC leader Saifuddin Soz is considered a certainty for a Cabinet post, but Ajit Singh's entry into the federal government has been opposed by the the Left parties. The Communists want the jat leader to be kept out of government on the ground that he has recently been chargesheeted in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case.

United News of India adds:

The prime minister held another round of discussions with senior Congress leader K Karunakaran on Thursday night in a bid to improve his strained relations with Congress president Sitaram Kesri.

Deve Gowda, who left for Davos on Friday morning, will meet Karunakaran again on his return.

The prime minister earlier met Karunakaran on January 27. This meeting followed CPI-M general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet's parleys with Karunakaran.

After Monday's meeting with Deve Gowda, Karunakaran briefed Kesri about his discussions with the prime minister.

During Thursday's meeting, the prime minister is understood to have given Karunakaran an assurance that his government would not take a final decision on the sale of Maruti Udyog shares to Suzuki and the Tata-Singapore Airlines proposal for domestic air transport without proper consultations with the Congress leadership.

The Congress Parliamentary Party executive, on January 24, had objected to these proposals.