Khattar Cabinet comes in for first expansion today11 portfolios allocated to Dy CM Dushyant
Pradeep Sharma
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 13
Acting on the advice of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Haryana Governor today allocated 11 portfolios, including key departments of Revenue and Disaster Management, Excise and Taxation, Industry and Development and Panchayat, to Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.
The allocation of portfolios comes a day before the state Cabinet expansion.
The Food and Civil Supplies, PWD, Labour and Employment, Civil Aviation, Archaeology and Museums, Rehabilitation and Consolidation are the other departments allocated to Chautala.
All other departments, including Home, Finance, Urban Local Bodies and Town and Country Planning will remain with the Chief Minister
While the BJP high command had already given its nod to the faces to be included in the Council of Ministers, sources said around 10 new ministers were likely to take oath tomorrow with the saffron party keeping a couple of slots vacant for future expansion.
The Haryana Cabinet can have a maximum of 14 ministers, including the Chief Minister. Now, two more ministerial berths are set to go to the alliance partner JJP, besides the post of Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, while about six to seven slots are to be filled from the BJP quota. One or two slots are likely to be filled from the seven Independents supporting the BJP.
Among the frontrunners from the BJP are six-time MLA Anil Vij (Ambala Cantonment) from the Punjabi community and former Speaker Kanwar Pal Gujjar and Abhe Singh Yadav from the OBC community.
Kamal Gupta (Hisar), Deepak Mangla (Palwal) and Ghanshyam Saraf (Bhiwani) are frontrunners from the Aggarwal community. The name of Banwari Lal (Bawal) is doing the rounds from the Dalit community.
