Pinarayi Vijayan to take oath as Chief Minister of Kerala on May 20

Image courtesy: ANI

Thiruvananthapuram: The Communist Party of India (CPI) has nominated four ministers and a deputy speaker to the new LDF government that will be sworn-in on Thursday. The CPI ministers in the new government will be K Rajan, P Prasad, J Chinchurani and GR Anil. Chittayam Gopakumar has also been nominated for the post of Deputy Speaker. 

Kanam Rajendran, state secretary of the party said that the chief minister would announce the portfolios of the ministers. 

CPI also nominated new faces as ministers, going by the party's rule of not fielding any ministers for two consecutive terms. While Roshy Augustine will be a minister from Kerala Congress (M), K Krishnankutty will be part of the new cabinet from Janata Dal (S) and AK Saseendran will be a minister from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The remaining two ministerial posts will be shared between other allies on an alternate basis, the first two and half years Antony Raju of Janadhipatya Kerala Congress and Ahammad Devarkovil of Indian National League will be ministers.

N Jayaraj from KC(M) will be the new Chief Whip. Only the Chief Minister will be there (from the previous Kerala cabinet), rest of the 11 ministers are new. It is a blend of youngsters and the old," said AN Shamseer, CPI(M) leader on the new Kerala Cabinet that will be sworn in on May 20.

On being asked about KK Shailaja being dropped from the Cabinet AN Shamseer, CPI(M) leader said, "It is our party`s collective decision taken by a collective leadership."

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) state committee on Tuesday appointed Pinarayi Vijayan as the CPI (M) parliamentary party leader and Kerala`s Chief Minister. 

The ministers from CPI(M) in the new Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet include MV Govindan, K Radhakrishnan, KN Balagopal, P Rajeev, VN Vasavan, Saji Cherian, V Sivankutty, Mohammad Riyas, Dr R Bindu, Veena George and V Abdul Rahman. Interestingly, Riyas is the son-in-law of the Chief Minister.

The Communist Party of India (M)-led LDF retained power in Kerala by winning 99 seats against 41 seats of Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in the Assembly polls. BJP could not win any seat.