By IANS,
New Delhi : Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have five ministers each in the 33-member union cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced Wednesday while the most populous state Uttar Pradesh finds no representation.
Tamil Nadu’s total representation in the council of ministers, comprising 33 cabinet ministers and 45 ministers of state, will be 10 — three from the Congress and seven from its ally DMK.
The five cabinet ministers from the southern state are P. Chidambaram and G.K. Vasan from the Congress and DMK’s A. Raja, M.K. Azhagiri and Dayanidhi Maran.
Maharashtra will have nine members in the council of ministers — seven from the Congress and two from its ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The five Maharashtra cabinet ministers are Vilasrao Deshmukh, Mukul Wasnik, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Murli Deora and Sharad Pawar.
Uttar Pradesh gets two ministers of state with independent charge and three ministers of state in the council of ministers.
Communist-ruled West Bengal’s representation in the council of ministers will be eight with two cabinet ministers and six ministers of state. Pranab Mukherjee is the lone Congress minister from the state, with all the other berths going to the Trinamool Congress, including party chief Mamata Banerjee who is railways minister.
For the first time in its history, Kerala, which is also ruled by Communists, will have six members in the council of ministers — five from the Congress and one from its ally Muslim League.
Two Kerala leaders A.K. Antony and Vayalar Ravi, both of the Congress, were made cabinet ministers last week.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Karnataka will have three cabinet ministers and one minister of state. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge will take oath Thursday. Former chief ministers of the state S.M. Krishna and Veerappa Moily were sworn in last week.
There is only one cabinet minister from Andhra Pradesh – S. Jaipal Reddy – that is sending 33 MPs to the Lok Sabha. But the state has got one minister of state with independent charge and four ministers of state.
Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand and Chandigarh have one cabinet minister each. These are Meira Kumar (Bihar), C.P. Joshi (Rajasthan), Kapil Sibal (Delhi), Kumari Selja (Haryana), B.K. Handique (Assam), Subodh Kant Sahay (Jharkhand) and Pawan Kumar Bansal (Chandigarh).
Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have got two cabinet ministers each. These are — from Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad; from Punjab, Ambika Soni and M.S. Gill; from Himachal Pradesh, Virbhadra Singh and Anand Sharma; and from Madhya Pradesh Kantilal Bhuria and Kamal Nath.