Singh picks 31 new faces

The youngest among them is former LS Speaker P A Sangma’s daughter 28-year-old Agatha Sangma, who won from Tura in Meghalaya.

Farooq Abdullah was the chief minister of J&K for three terms since 1982, but the septuagenarian will begin a new innings in his political career when the President Pratibha Patil will administer the oath of office and secrecy to him at 11:30 am on Thursday. For former Karnataka chief minister M Veerappa Moily who headed the second Administrative Reforms Commission the stint in the Union Cabinet is going to be an altogether new experience for him.

Another former CM among the freshers in Cabinet is Vilasrao Deshmukh, who headed the Maharashtra government for two incomplete terms – from 1999 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2008. Rajasthan PCC president C P Joshi and DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s son M K Azhagiri are also among the new faces.

Harish Rawat (Uttarakhand), Gurudas Kamat and Prateek Prakashbabu Patil (Maharashtra), Sachin Pilot (Rajashthan), Bharat Sinh Solanki and Tusharbhai Choudhary (Gujarat), Dinesh Trivedi, Sisir Adhikary, Sultan Ahmed, Mohan Jatua and Mukul Ray (West Bengal), Vincent Pala (Meghalaya), R P N Singh and Pradip Jain (UP), Preneet Kaur (Punjab), D Napoleon, S Jagatrakshakan, S Gandhiselvan and former UN undersecretary general Sashi Tharoor are among the new faces in the PM’s team.