7 Independents get berths in Hooda Cabinet

Sun, Nov 8 06:06 AM

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who constituted his Council of Ministers on Saturday, rewarded all seven Independents who supported the party with a seat even as four seats were left vacant in the hope of bringing on board Kuldeep Bishnoi's Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC). With regard to the 10 Congress MLAs who made it to the Cabinet, Hooda's writ prevailed and his detractors were kept out in the cold.

The Independents, of whom all except Om Prakash Jain (Panipat Rural) are first-timers, have claimed a disproportionately large share of the seats in comparison with the Congress's 40 elected MLAs. Jain, who had been a minister in former chief minister Bansi Lal's Government, has been appointed Cabinet minister for Transport, Tourism and Civil Aviation while three Independents have been appointed Ministers of State and another three Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPS). Out of the 10 Congress MLAs taken in the team, four have been taken as Cabinet ministers and six as CPSs.

Even as Hooda gave in to pressure from Independents, he succeeded in keeping former forest minister Kiran Choudhry out of his Cabinet. Kiran who had levelled allegations of Hooda sabotaging the chances of her daughter who contested the Lok Sabha election from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh, was offered a Minister of State position which she refused. Another significant exclusion had been of Forbes billionaire Savitri Jindal who had been part of the previous Cabinet. Jindal's son Naveen Jindal had been a surprise contender for the CM's post after the Congress failed to get a simple majority in the elections. Another staunch Hooda opponent, former finance minister Birender Singh, had lost the Assembly election.

Congress MLAs in the Cabinet included former irrigation minister Captain Ajay Singh Yadav (Rewari), the senior-most and six-time MLA who was given charge of Finance, Planning, Institutional Finance and Credit Control, Irrigation, Forests and Environment. Congress's Randeep Singh Surjewals, a later addition as he did not figure in the list a day before, was given the portfolios of Water Supply and Sanitation, Parliamentary Affairs, Electronics and Information Technology, Science and Technology and PWD. Mahender Partap Singh was appointed Cabinet minister for Power, Renewable Energy, Labour and Employment, Food and Supplies, Urban Local Bodies and Industries and Commerce.

Independent Gopal Kanda (Sirsa), owner of MDLR airlines, was appointed MoS Home. Another Independent Shiv Charan Sharma (Faridabad NIT) was appointed MoS Revenue and Disaster Management while Sukhbir Kataria (Gurgaon) has been appointed MoS Agriculture and Cooperation.

The Home portfolio remains with the Chief Minister.

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