IANS
New Delhi, May 27: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to lead a 78-member council of ministers, including 33 cabinet ministers and 45 ministers of state, in his second term as head of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India. The outgoing government also had 78 ministers.
While 19 cabinet ministers had been sworn in last week Friday, 14 more will take oath Thursday morning along with 45 ministers of state, seven of whom will hold independent charge.
The new cabinet ministers include three former chief ministers -- Virbhadra Singh (Himachal Pradesh), Vilasrao Deshmukh (Maharashtra) and Farooq Abdullah (Jammu and Kashmir). Three leaders from the DMK, the Congress' allies in Tamil Nadu, also find place -- Dayanidhi Maran, M.K. Azhagari and A. Raja.
The others are the Congress' 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.
The 38 ministers of state are E. Ahamed, V. Narayanasamy, Srikant Jena, Mullappally Ramachandran, D. Purandeswari, 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, K.V. Thomas, Saugata Ray, Dinesh Trivedi, Sisir Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy, Mohan Jatua, S.S. Palanimanickam, D. Napoleon, S. Jagathrakshakan, S. Gandhiselvan, Preneet Kaur, Sachin Pilot, Shashi Tharoor, Bharatsinh Solanki, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Arun Yadav,
Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, R.P.N. Singh, Vincent Pala, Pradeep Jain and Agatha Sangma.