Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will expand his Cabinet on Tuesday, inducting an MLA each from his party BJP and ally Jannayak Janta Party.
In the second expansion to be carried out in two years, BJP’s Hisar MLA Dr Kamal Gupta and JJP’s Tohana MLA Devender Singh Babli will be inducted into the Khattar cabinet.
“Two MLAs will be inducted. One is Kamal Gupta, second one is Devender Babli,” Khattar told reporters here ahead of the cabinet expansion.
“Yes, the suspense is over now,” Khattar said in a lighter vein, when pointed out that the cabinet expansion was finally taking place after months of speculation in this regard.
After the two MLAs take oath, the strength of council of ministers will go up to 14, including the chief minister, which is the upper limit.
Earlier, 10 MLAs were inducted into Khattar cabinet in November 2019, days after the chief minister and his deputy Dushyant Chautala were sworn-in on October 27, 2019.
After the cabinet expansion takes place on Tuesday evening, the BJP will have 10 ministers, including the CM, and JJP will have three ministers including Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala while Ranjit Singh Chautala is the lone Independent MLA inducted as a minister.
The BJP fell short of a simple majority winning 40 of the 90 assembly seats in the October 2019 polls and later it forged a post-poll alliance with the JJP, which has 10 MLAs.