CHENNAI: The Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay-led TVK government is poised for its first Cabinet expansion on Thursday in a political balancing act that juggles alliance management, regional representation, and internal power equations.
Sources told DT Next that the final list of ministers was in the last stage of consultation ahead of the swearing-in ceremony that is likely on Thursday morning. Governor in-charge Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar is expected to arrive in Chennai on Wednesday evening.
The ruling party is learnt to have decided to accommodate Congress legislators – S Rajeshkumar and P Viswanathan are the frontrunners – but has backed away from inducting MLAs from the AIADMK faction led by C Ve Shanmugam and SP Velumani due to sustained objections from the Congress, the Left parties and VCK, who have conveyed strong reservations over any attempt to offer Cabinet berths to AIADMK legislators.
"We never officially discussed inducting AIADMK legislators into the Cabinet. Their support during the confidence vote was political support extended on the floor of the House and nothing beyond that," a minister told DT Next.
Sources within the ruling establishment, however, admitted that legal advisors and alliance partners had cautioned the leadership against a politically risky experiment that could trigger a possible instability at the very outset of the government's tenure.
The leadership is learnt to be weighing community arithmetic, district representation, organisational influence and electoral performance while finalising the list. Inside the TVK, the Cabinet expansion exercise has triggered intense lobbying among first-time MLAs and influential party functionaries.
The Cabinet expansion would fill the vacuum in more than 20 government departments, including important ones like Higher Education, Revenue, Transport, and Social Welfare, that do not have ministers even days after the Chief Minister formed the Cabinet.
The other departments that remain without ministers are Agriculture, Backward Classes Welfare, Housing and Urban Development, Small Industries, Adi Dravidar Welfare, Tourism, Commercial Taxes, Minority Welfare, Information Technology, HR&CE, Labour Welfare, Forests, Fisheries, Handlooms and Textiles, Environment and Climate Change, and Dairy Development.
Sources in the Secretariat said that some of these departments are currently being supervised by the existing ministers, though informally. Senior officials from certain departments have been consulting these ministers and receiving oral instructions regarding administrative matters.
For instance, sources said, the Transport Department officials are reportedly coordinating with Minister R Nirmalkumar, while Social Welfare Department officials are holding discussions with Minister S Keerthana.
Officials said the ministers have already begun reviewing files and interacting with department officials despite the absence of formal portfolio allocation orders.
SUITORS
N Marie Wilson, ECR P Saravanan, S Ramesh, J Mohamed Farvas, V Sathyabama, A Vijay Tamilan Parthiban, V Sampathkumar, Rhevanth Charan, RS Murughan, Sathish Christopher, R Vijaysaravanan, MV Karuppaiah and Madhar Badhurudeen
HEADLESS
Higher Education, Revenue, Transport, Social Welfare, Agriculture, IT, HR&CE, Textiles, Tourism