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Much awaited Haryana Cabinet expansion today

CHANDIGARH: Finally the much awaited expansion of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda Council of Ministers in Haryana which was scheduled for Friday morning but was postponed at the eleventh hour will take place on Saturday at Raj Bhavan here at 11 a.m.

The Chief Minister, who was in New Delhi holding meetings with several Congress leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi to resolve “issues” relating to Cabinet formation, was returning to Chandigarh on Friday night after having obtained clearance from the party high command.

Informed sources here said it was not yet clear what transpired during the meetings between Mr. Hooda and Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leader Kuldeep Bishnoi in New Delhi to indicate whether the HJC would formally merge with the Congress or extend support to the Hooda regime from outside to lend it stability.

The Congress won 40 of the 90 Haryana Assembly seats in the recent elections, falling six short of a simple majority, but subsequently won the vote of confidence in the Assembly with the support of seven Independents and one Bahujan Samaj Party MLA while the six-member HJC abstained.

Political observers here said it was not yet clear as to what formula had been worked out to strike a balance -- accommodate former Ministers and other Congress MLAs who had won seats for the second time or include the Independents and former INLD leaders who had joined the Congress recently. It was also not yet clear whether Mr. Bishnoi and his men would be accommodated in the Council of Ministers. There was also talk of some prominent former Ministers being dropped.

Interestingly, the Cabinet can have only 13 Ministers in addition to the Chief Minister as per the law.

It is being said that Mr. Hooda may perform the balancing act by appointing some MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries.

An official spokesman said that the Chief Parliamentary Secretary and Parliamentary Secretaries would be sworn in at 12-30 p.m. by Mr. Hooda.

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Much awaited Haryana Cabinet expansion today

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