Bhuria, Scindia, Yadav Sworn in as PM Expands Ministerial Team
Ending days of speculation 14 Cabinet ministers, 7 Ministers of State with independent charge, and 38 other MoS were administered oath of office and secrecy by President Pratibha Patil at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.
Senior Congress man and former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbdhadra Singh was the first to take the oath as a Cabinet minister, he was followed by National Conference patron and former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah.
Others to be inducted into the cabinet are former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Dayanidhi Maran, A Raja, Mallikarjun Kharge, Kumari Selja, Subodh Kant Sahay, MS Gill, GK Vasan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Mukul Wasnik, Kantilal Bhuria and MK Azhagiri.
The MoS with independednt charge to take oath on Thursday were Praful Patel, Prithviraj Chavan, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Salman Khursheed, Dinsha Patel, Jairam Ramesh and Krishna Tirath took oath as ministers of state with independent charge.
Other MoS inducted were Srikant Jena, E Ahamed, Mullappally Ramachandran, V Narayanasamy, Jyotiraditya Scindia, D Purandeswari, Ajay Maken, KH Muniyappa, Panabaka Lakshmi, Namo Narain Meena, MM Pallam Raju, Saugata Ray, SS Palanimanickam, Jitin Prasada, A Sai Prathap, Gurudas Kamat, Harish Rawat, KV Thomas, Bharatsinh Solanki, Mahadev Khandela, Dinesh Trivedi, Shishir Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy, Mohan Jatua, D Napoleon, S Jagathrakshakan, S Gandhiselvan, Preneet Kaur, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Sachin Pilot, Arun Yadav, Prateek Prakash Patil, RPN Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Vincent Pala, Pradeep Jain, and Agatha Sangma.
Reports in the media suggest the team was finalized after several rounds of consultations between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The induction on Thursday takes the size of the ministerial team to 75 as 19 cabinet ministers had taken oath with the Prime Minister on Friday.
29 first-timers were also sworn-in, the list included former Madhya Pradesh Congress unit Chief Subhash Yadav’s son Arun Yadav.
Other MP leaders in the government are former Kamal Nath, Kantilal Bhuria who was MoS Agriculture and Jyotiraditya Scindia who served as MoS IT and communications in the last government.
