Thiruvananthapuram, September 5
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy today expanded his Cabinet inducting 15 ministers, 10 of them from the Congress, three from the Indian Union Muslim League and one each from the Kerala Congress (M) and the RSP (B).Governor R.L. Bhatia administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly-inducted ministers at Raj Bhavan
Mr Chandy and four leaders of the UDF constituents were sworn in on August 31, two days after A.K. Antony quit office.
Prominent Congress leaders who joined the Cabinet were former Assembly Speaker Vakkom Purushothaman, senior legislators Aryadan Muhammed, K.K. Ramachandran and K.P. Vishwanathan.
The Congress nominees joining the Cabinet for the first time were Thiruvananchur Radhakrishnan, A.P. Anil Kumar, Adoor Prakash, K.C. Venugopal, Dominique Presentation and N. Sakthan.
The League had retained M.K. Muneer but chose E.T. Muhammad Basheer and Kutty Ahamed Kutty to replace Walakath Soopy and Cherkalam Abdulla, who were members in the Antony Cabinet.
Babu Divakaran of the RSP-B and C.F. Thomas of the KC(M) are back in the Cabinet. —
PTI
