Former Chief Ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Virbhadra Singh and Farooq Abdullah will be inducted into the Union Cabinet on Thursday when the Union Council of Ministers will be expanded to take in 59 more ministers including new entrants Mallikarjun Kharge and M.K. Alagiri.
Other Cabinet ministers to be sworn in are DMK's Dayanidhi Maran and A. Raja, Congress MPs M.S. Gill, Kumari Selja, Subodh Kant Sahay, G.K. Vasan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Kantilal Bhuria (all elevated from the level of Ministers of State) and Congress leader Mukul Wasnik.
With Thursday's expansion, the total strength of the Council of Ministers will go upto 79 including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr. Virbhadra Singh, a former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, has been elected from Mandi while Mr. Abdullah from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Deshmukh, a former Maharashtra Chief Minister, is not a member of either House of Parliament.
Those being inducted as Ministers of State with independent charge are Praful Patel (NCP), Prithviraj Chavan, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Salman Khursheed, Dinsha Patel, Jairam Ramesh and Krishna Tirath (all Congress).
Prominent among the new ministers to be sworn in tomorrow are : 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.
Thursday's expansion will also see induction of six Trinamool Congress MPs, four from DMK and one from Muslim League.
Mr. Praful Patel retains his status while Mr. Chavan, Mr. Jaiswal, Mr. Dinsha Patel and Mr. Ramesh have been promoted to hold Independent charge.
Prominent Ministers of the earlier government who have been dropped include Arjun Singh, H.R. Bhardwaj, Sis Ram Ola and Saifuddin Soz (all Congress) and T.R. Baalu (DMK).
Ministers of State who did not find a place in the new government are Ashwini Kumar, Rao Inderjit Singh and Santosh Bagrodia (all Congress).
The other Ministers of State who would be sworn in are V Narayanaswamy, Namo Narain Meena, Srikant Jena, , 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 are Bharatsinh Solanki, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Arun Yadav, Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, R.P.N. Singh, Vincent Pala and Pradeep Jain.
The TMC members to be sworn in are Saugata Ray, Dinesh Trivedi, Sisir Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy and Mohan Jatua.
Ministers of State from DMK will be S.S. Palanimackam, who retains his place, actor D. Napolean, S. Jagathrakshakan and S. Gandhiselvan.
Of the 59 to be inducted on Thursday, 42 belong to Congress, taking the total number of ministers from the party to 60, including the Prime Minister.
Ministers to be sworn in on Thursday will 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 will be Cabinet ministers, six with Independent charge and 26 Ministers of State.
In all, Congress will have 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.
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