Manmohan Singh adds 22 more Ministers in Govt

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday went for a major reshuffle of his Council of Ministers adding Seven Cabinet and 15 Ministers of State and also planning promotions and portfolio changes for many existing ministers.

At a special ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan that began at 11.30 a,m and took over an hour to complete, President Pranab Mukherjee administered the oath to the new entrants. Among the new ministers were Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor , actor Chiranjeevi and Tariq Anwar. There seemed to be definite tilt towards Andhra Pradesh—with 5 new names—where the Congress is facing a tough fight to retain power . Two ministers were from Telangana where statehood agitation is continuing. Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala got more berths. After the exit of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress many seats had fallen vacant. Mamata’s rival in West Bengal politics, the wife of ailing Congress leader, Dasmunshi, Deepa, was sworn in as minister.

Five Ministers of State -- Dinsha Patel, M M Pallam Raju, Harish Rawat, Ajay Maken and Ashwani Kumar -- were promoted to Cabinet rank.

Twelve new Ministers of State were sworn-in. They are Tariq Anwar (Maharashtra), K Suresh (Kerala), A H Khan Chowdhry, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhry and Deepa Dasmunshi, (West Bengal), S Satyanarayana, K Jayasuyraprakash Reddy, P Balram Naik, and Killi Kriparani (Andhra Pradesh). Lalchand Kataria (Rajasthan), Ranee Narah (Assam) and Ninong Ering (Arunachal Pradesh) are the others who were sworn-in as MoS.

The portfolios will be announced in the evening. Speculation is Salman Khurshid is getting External Affairs portfolio vacated by S.M. Krishna and Industry Minister Anand Sharma being shifted to Textiles, vacated by DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran.

Cabinet:

1- K Rahman Khan

2- Dinshaw Patel

3- Ajay maken

4- Pallam Raju

5- Ashwini Kumar

6- Harish Rawat

7- Chandresh Kumari Katoch

MOS: Independent Charge

1- Manish Tewari

2- K Chiranjeevi

MOS:

1 – Shashi Tharoor

2- Kodi Kunil Suresh

3- Tariq Anwar

4- K Jayasurya Prakash Reddy

5- Rani Nara

6- Adhir Ranjan Chowdhry

7- A H Khan Chowdhry

8- S Satyanarayana

9- Ninong Ering

10- Deepa Dasmunshi

11- Porika Balram Naik

12- Dr Smt Krupa Ravi Killi

13- Lalchand Kataria

- Asian Tribune -