27 May :The Union cabinet is likely to be expanded on Thursday since the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi held a series of meetings to finalise the list of ministers and portfolios.After a series of meetings with the UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has recommended 59 names to the President Pratibha Devisingh Patil for inclusion in his Council of Ministers.
These include 14 Cabinet, seven Ministers of State with Independent Charge and 38 Ministers of State.
With Thursday’s expansion, the total strength of the Council of Ministers will go upto 79 including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
There will be six women candidates among them. There are as many as 40 new faces.
Cabinet Ministers to be included are Virbhadra Singh , Vilasrao Deshmukh , Dr.Farooq Abdullah, Dayanidhi Maran, A Raja, Mallikarjun Kharge, Kumari Selja, Subodh Kant Sahay, Dr M S Gill, G K Vasan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Mukul Wasnik and Kantilal Bhuria.
The Ministers of State with Independent Charge are M K Azhagiri, Praful Patel, Prithviraj Chauhan, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Salman Khursheed, Dinsha Patel, Jairam Ramesh and Mrs. Krishna Tirath.
Ministers of State will include E Ahamed, V Narayanasamy, Srikant Jena, Mullappally Ramachandran, Smt D Purandeswari, Smt Panabaka Lakshmi, Ajay Maken, K H Muniyappa, Namo Narain Meena, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasad, A Sai Prathap, Gurudas Kamat, M M Pallam Raju, Mahadev Khandela, Harish Rawat, Professor K V Thomas, Saugata Ray, Dinesh Trivedi.
Other Ministers of State include Sisir Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy, Mohan Jatua, S S Palanimanickam, D Napoleon, Dr.S Jagathrakshakan, S Gandhiselvan, Smt Preneet Kaur, Sachin Pilot, Shashi Tharoor, Bharatsinh Solanki, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Arun Yadav, Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, R P N Singh, Vincent Pala, Pradeep Jain and Ms. Agatha Sangma.