CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Monday assumed the office of Chief Minister for the sixth time with four new ministers inducted into the cabinet in addition to the 29 already inducted taking the total to 33.
The grand function was held at Madras University Auditorium. Governor K Rosaiah administered the oath of office to the new Council of Ministers. The new faces includes one female Muslim community member. There are now 17 new faces in the present Council of Ministers.
The four new Ministers and their portfolios are: G Baskaran, Khadi and Village Industries; Sevvoor S Ramachandran, HR and CE; Dr Nilofer Kafeel, Labour; B Balakrishna Reddy, Animal Husbandry. The new Ministers will be sworn in on May 25 at 7 p.m.
Jayalalithaa took the oath of office and oath of secrecy in the name of God. Later, the ministers took their oaths with the ceremony being over in 25 minutes.
Just after the swearing in ceremony was over, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Iran, tweeted : “Congratulations to Jayalalithaa ji and her team on taking oath. Centre will work closely with new Govt. for progress of TN.”
Vice President Hameed Ansari and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh called her up and greeted her on the occasion. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and BS Yeddyurappa, BJP Karnataka president and Union Minister Najma Heptullah greeted her.
In the new Cabinet, the inter-se seniority for the first five places is as follows: J Jayalalithaa, O Panneerselvam, Finance Minister, Dindigul C Srinivasan (Forests Minister), Edappadi K Palanisamy (Public Works and Highways Minister) and Sellur K Raju (Cooperation and Labour Minister).
While Jayalalithaa has retained Police, Home, Public, IAS, IPS, IFS Services and General Administration, she has given old portfolios to certain Ministers and changed portfolios for some others. The portfolios allotted to the other Ministers are as follows:
P Thangamani (Electricity), SP Velumani (Municipal Admn), MC Sampath (Industries), R Kamaraj (Food & HR & CE), C Vijaya Baskar (Health) SP Shanmuganathan (Dairy Development), RB Udayakumar (Revenue), KT Rajenthra Bhalaji (Rural Industries) and KC Veeramani (Commercial Taxes), C Ve Shanmugam (Law), D Jayakumar (Fisheries ), KP Anbazhagan (Higher Education), Dr V Saroja (Social Welfare), KC Karuppannan (Environment), OS Manian (Handloom and Textiles), Udumalai K Radhakrishnan (Housing), R Duraikannu (Agriculture), Kadambur Raju (Information), P Benjamin (School Education), Vellamandi N Natarajan (Tourism), S Valarmathi (Bakcward Classes and Minorities Welfare), VM Rajalakshmi (Adi Dravida and Tribal Welfare) and Dr M Manikandan (Information Technology) and MR Vijayabaskar (Transport).
Those in attendance at in ceremony included Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Pon Radhakrishnan, DMK treasurer M K Stalin and CPI leader D Pandian.
1st session on May 25
The first session of the 15th Assembly begins on May 25. The House will meet at 11 am and all 232 elected MLAs will take oath as members of the House. Pro-tem Speaker, S Semmalai will administer the oath to the members. All elected MLAs should bring their Certificate of Election on the day. On Monday, Governor K Rosaiah administered the oath to Semmalai in the presence of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.