India's Council of Ministers expanded

New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) India's Council of Ministers was
Thursday expanded with the induction of 59 ministers including
three former chief ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Farooq
Abdullah and Virbhadra Singh at the Cabinet level.

In all, 14 cabinet ministers, including Dravida Munnetra
Kazhgham (DMK) nominees M K Alagiri, Dayanidhi Maran and A
Raja, and Congress' Mallikarjun Kharge were sworn in by
President Pratibha Patil, six days after Prime Minister and 19
others took oath in the first instalment.

Seven Ministers of State with Independent Charge,
including Praful Patel of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP),
Prithviraj Chavan, Salman Khursheed and Jairam Ramesh and 38
Ministers of State were also sworn in at a ceremony in the
Rashtrapati Bhawan attended among others by Vice President
Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress
President Sonia Gandhi.

With Thursday's induction, the strength of the Union
Council of Ministers goes up to 79, including the Prime
Minister, the same as the previous United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government after the exit of Shivraj Patil.

M S Gill, Selja, Subodhkant Sahay, G K Vasan, Pawan Kumar
Bansal, Kantilal Bhuria were the other cabinet ministers
inducted Thursday, all from Congress who have been elevated
from the status of Ministers of State. Mukul Wasnik, an MoS in
the P V Narasimha Rao government, has been brought in as a
Cabinet Minister.

Sriprakash Jaiswal and Dinsha Patel have been elevated as
Ministers of State with Independent Charge while Delhi MP
Krishna Tirath makes her ministerial debut in the same
category.

Prominent among the new ministers who were sworn in were
Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat who won from
Thiruvananthapuram, Sachin Pilot and Praneet Kaur, wife of
former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and Agatha
Sangma, daughter of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma.

The expansion also saw induction of six Trinamool
Congress MPs, four from DMK and one from Muslim League.

Of the 14 new Cabinet ministers, Kharge, a senior
leader from Karnataka, Selja and Wasnik belong to Scheduled
Caste while Bhuria belongs to Scheduled Tribe. Tirath also
belongs to Scheduled Caste.

Deshmukh, who belongs to dominant Maratha caste, had to
quit as Chief Minister in the aftermath of terror attack in
Mumbai in November last year.

The other Ministers of State who would be sworn in are E
Ahamed (Muslim League), V Narayanasamy, Namo Narain Meena,
Srikant Jena, Mullapally Ramachandran, A Sai Prathap, Harish
Rawat, D Purandeswari, Panabaka Lakshmi, Ajay Maken, Gurudas
Kamat, K H Muniyappa, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, M M
Pallam Raju, Mahadev Khandela, and K V Thomas (all Congress).

Other Congress leaders to make it to the Council of
Ministers were Bharatsinh Solanki, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Arun
Yadav, Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, R P N Singh, Vincent Pala
and Pradeep Jain.

The TMC members Saugata Ray, Dinesh Trivedi, Sisir
Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy and Mohan Jatua also took
oath.

Ministers of State from DMK were S S Palanimackam, who
retains his place, actor D Napolean, S Jagathrakshakan and S
Gandhiselvan.

Of the 59, 42 belong to Congress, taking the total number
of ministers from the party to 60, including the Prime
Minister.

The new ministers inducted today include seven of DMK,
six of TMC, two of NCP and one each of National Conference and
Muslim League.

Out of 42 from Congress, 10 are Cabinet ministers,
six with Independent charge and 26 Ministers of State. In all,
Congress has 28 Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime
Minister.

Surprisingly, there is no representative in the Cabinet
from Uttar Pradesh where Congress saw a substantial revival in
the Lok Sabha elections. PTI SKU
RKM
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