TRIVANDRUM, 5 September 2004 — Ending days of speculation and intense lobbying, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy yesterday announced a list of 10 Congress ministers, none of them belonging to the previous Cabinet.
Reflecting a mix of youth and experience, the list includes outgoing Speaker Vakkom Purushothaman, senior leaders Aryadan Mohammed, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, K.K. Ramachandran Master, K.P. Viswanathan — all of them former ministers.
The new faces include Dominic Presentation, N. Sakthan Nadar, M.P. Anilkumar, K.C. Venugopal and Adoor Prakash.
Six of them belong to the faction opposed to veteran leader K. Karunakaran while three of them are from his camp.
None of the eight Congress ministers from the previous A.K. Antony government have been included.
Chandy along with four leaders of allies in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was sworn in Tuesday, replacing Antony.
Replacing Purushothaman as speaker would be former Speaker Therambil Ramakrishnan and replacing Chandy as UDF convener would be former acting state Congress President P.P. Thankachen.
Arriving from Delhi yesterday morning, Chandy spoke with Karunakaran, Antony and state Congress President Thenala Balakrishna Pillai.
He went to the Raj Bhavan to hand over the list of ministers to Governor R.L. Bhatia.
The five remaining Cabinet berths will go to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) — which will get three portfolios, the Kerala Congress (Mani) and the RSP (B).
Babu Divakaran is the RSP (B) nominee for the labor minister’s post and C.F. Thomas is the most likely nominee of the Kerala Congress (Mani). Both of them were part of the Antony government.
The IUML leader P.K. Kunjalikutty has already been sworn in. M.K. Muneer, former Education Minister E.T. Mohammed Basheer and new face Kutty Ahmed Kutty have also been nominated to join the Cabinet. “The swearing in will take place today and the portfolios will be announced soon,” said Chandy.
The moment the list of Congress minister was announced fissures surfaced again with Karunakaran saying he had been humiliated. Karunakaran went into a huddle with his supporters at his residence as soon as Chandy announced the list.
“The list is full of people who are known factional leaders. It contains none from the list I gave. You tell me who are the three from my group?” said the former chief minister.
