New Delhi, May 27 (Inditop) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expands his council of ministers Thursday, adding 14 cabinet ministers, including three former chief ministers and three DMK leaders, and 45 ministers of state.
Of the ministers of state, seven will have independent charge.
The cabinet ministers include Virbhadra Singh, former Himachal Pradesh chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, former Maharashtra chief minister, and Farooq Abdullah, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister.
The others are Dayanidhi Maran, M.K. Azhagari and A. Raja of the DMK. From the Congress, the ministers will be Mallikarjun Kharge, Kumari Selja, Subodh Kant Sahay, M.S. Gill, G.K. Vasan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Mukul Wasnik and Kantilal Bhuria.
The ministers with independent charge are Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress’ Prithviraj Chavan, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Salman Khurshid, Jairam Ramesh, Krishna Tirath and Dinsha Patel.
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