29-member Council of Ministers headed by Jaya sworn in
Published: 23rd May 2016 12:56 PM | Last Updated: 23rd May 2016 02:41 PM | A+A A-
CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Monday assumed the office of Chief Minister for the sixth time with 28 Ministers at a grand function held at Madras University auditorium. Governor K Rosaiah administered the oath of office to the new Council of Ministers.
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Jayalalithaa took the oath of office and oath of secrecy first and later the 28 Ministers took the oath in two groups - 14 Ministers in each group and the entire ceremony was over in 25 minutes. After the swearing in, the new Council of Ministers posed for a group photo with the Governor.
For the first time, State Information Department has made arrangements for telecasting the swearing in ceremony in LED video van parked at vantage points across the State (except in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur where polling is scheduled to take place on June 13).
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).
The are 13 new faces and 12 Ministers who were part of Jayalalithaa's last Cabinet. Former MPs -OS Manian and Dr V Saroja and former Assembly Speaker D Jayakumar are among the old faces now inducted into the Cabinet.
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)
- 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 and Animal Husbandry)
- 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)
- Dr M Manikandan (Information Technology)
- MR Vijayabaskar (Transport)
Those who attended the swearing in ceremony were: Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishnan, DMK treasurer MK Stalin and senior MLAs of the party, actors Nasser, Vishal, Vindhya, many industrialists, Prince of Arcot Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali and AISMK founder R Sarathkumar.
